


Against All Odds

by BrynTWedge, egmon73, InnerSpectrum, Iolanfg, isafil, Janyss



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, French Kissing, Gabriel Lestrade - Freeform, Johnlock in background, Kisses, M/M, Male Slash, Morning Kisses, Original Character(s), Post-Season/Series 04, Protective Greg, Protective Greg Lestrade, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Slow Build, Slow Romance, Vulnerable Mycroft, motos, mystrade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:16:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16213190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrynTWedge/pseuds/BrynTWedge, https://archiveofourown.org/users/egmon73/pseuds/egmon73, https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnerSpectrum/pseuds/InnerSpectrum, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iolanfg/pseuds/Iolanfg, https://archiveofourown.org/users/isafil/pseuds/isafil, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janyss/pseuds/Janyss
Summary: After the Sherrinford events, Mycroft Holmes finds himsellf in the middle of a brutal turmoil. Wasn't he the cause of this immense disaster... ?  The British secret service is tapping him, the press is ready to get the case out. The scandal will ruin his career.  John Watson, who almost lost his life, saw Sherlock shove a gun down his throat, ready to die to save him again. And all this because of Mycroft Holmes' responsibility.One man, one man only , against all odds, is coming to help him. Gregory Lestrade. Not out of duty or friendship. Because of love.But neither of the two men knows how far the other will be willing to go...





	1. Taking Care of Him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [green_violin_bow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_violin_bow/gifts), [Lockedinjohnlock (Podfixx)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Podfixx/gifts), [MsLadySmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsLadySmith/gifts), [madsydva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsydva/gifts), [egmon73](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egmon73/gifts), [Anarfea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarfea/gifts).



> How can we not thank from the bottom of our hearts the immense Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat for this incredible gift? Our characters would not exist without them !
> 
> This fic was written in French. Friends and wonderful translators, LAURI PLEDGER, EGMON73 and INNERSPECTRUM have taken on the immense task of translating this story into English. Janyss and I we are deeply grateful for this. 
> 
> There may still be mistakes, French idioms, approximations. We have made our best. Don't blame us and help us improve the translation. 
> 
> We hope you will enjoy reading this story as much as we had writing it starting in the summer of 2018.
> 
> All your comments are welcome !

_Stay calm_ , Greg thought to himself. _Stay calm_.

Calm despite the anguish that was creeping in. Despite Sally's overly energetic driving behaviour (hadn't the police officer himself instructed her to speed up?) Despite some resentment, too.

A few moments earlier, he had left a seminar for exchange of anti-terrorist practices. He’d been registered for it in the last minute, and retrospectively, it appeared as a pretext that had made it possible to remove him from London and hide the affairs of two siblings. And then Sherlock had just called him in a worried voice, in a voice that sounded so little like him, that Greg's bad mood over this sudden removal had dissipated and given way to a deep anxiety that weighed down upon his chest.

"She's a killer... she's very dangerous. No-one must exchange a word with her, no-one, do you hear me? She came after me… after John. And...” there was a break, “... at Mycroft. John and I are fine. John is with me, but.... "

The words stopped again, and Greg spoke, as detached as possible, "Tell me where you are."

The police officer had handled things, left the seminar, and sent agents to the scene Sherlock indicated. All this while continually trying to call Mycroft. At least he had heard some noise during these preparations; the silence that had settled in the car no longer allowed him to ignore the anxious twisting of his stomach. His mind was looking for an anchor to hold on to so as not to be overcome by the sensation; he kept manipulating his mobile nervously under Sally's watchful eye. She remained silent, but her fast and precise driving showed her understanding of the situation.

The phone screen suddenly lit up, displaying a name. Greg's heart went wild.

 "Mycroft! Are you all right? You're not hurt?"

In a rushed flat voice, Mycroft replied, "I can't talk to you very long. I... Sherlock and John? Do you know if...?"

"Yes, I'm on my way to join them. As soon as I've settled everything for them, I'll come to you. Tell me where..."

"Greg, I have something to tell you... the killer is... it's... it's... "

The communication was cut off abruptly; Greg tried to call back several times, disillusioned and barely reassured. Suddenly, emerging from the night and breaking its calm, a group of agents, health workers, and police cars appeared – indicating that they had arrived.

The place was grim. The imposing silhouette of a near-calcined ruin blocked the way along which Greg found John and Sherlock. Their faces, barely visible, remained motionless and frozen as he approached. The two men, walled in silence, still seemed under the influence of immense terror. Greg tried to erase the marks of his own worry to be reassuring. He called Sherlock by marking, as much as possible, the resolution in his voice.

"I just spoke to your brother…"

"How is he ?"

"He’s a bit shaken up, that’s all. She didn’t hurt him, she just locked him in her old cell"

"What goes around, comes around…”

John had thrown this sentence, full of animosity, as he looked up at Greg. He felt the anger resurrecting in him along with the anxiety he had tried to suppress. _So John was holding Mycroft responsible for all this?_

Sherlock immediately took the floor again, looking away, as if he didn't want to hear himself say the words. "Oh, hm... Mycroft...make sure he’s looked after. He’s not as strong as he thinks he is," he added in a low, almost raging, voice. Bringing his eyes back to the inspector, he observed him, looking at him both questioning and slightly uncertain.

Greg shivered and answered firmly, "Yeah, I’ll take care of it."

The cold wind was pressing the too-thin fabric of his jacket against him. But it wasn't just the gusts that made him tremble. There was in Sherlock's exhausted voice, Greg thought as the young man turned to him, a half-veiled plea; an unfinished request, full of tangible concern, which was also expressed through the handshake the young man gave him. Sherlock, pale and icy, suddenly seemed to wobble and clung, like a shipwrecked man, to Greg.

"Hey, Sherlock, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice muffled and worried. However, Sherlock had already regained control of himself and from his usual tone he called John, still draped in the blanket he had been covered with when he was pulled out, half-drowned, from the well.

"Isn't it, John?"

"Isn't it what, Sherlock?" John asked, with a face that said a lot about his own state of exhaustion, and without really understanding his friend's sibylline question. "I assure you, this is really not the time to talk in riddles..."

"Mycroft," Sherlock added, leaving his sentence hanging on his lips.

"Well, what about Mycroft?"

"He... he... he..." Sherlock continued, with a voice that went off again. "He has been... hit, hard... and even harder than it seems." Plunging his gaze into that of the DI, he added, "You get my drift, don't you, Lestrade?"

Greg suddenly felt himself blushing from Sherlock's words. He should have known, however, that nothing escaped the detective's extreme acuity; even less so anything that could involve his brother.

Greg sighed, and in a desperate attempt to divert Sherlock's thoughts as far away from Mycroft as possible, he said, "You'd better bring John back to London. Look, he's as white as a sheet. And you're not much better yourself. I don't know what happened, but neither of you..."

Sherlock, without moving an inch, his eyes glued to the ground and his hands joined under his chin, spoke again and whispered almost silently to the police officer.

"Don't blame John. He really came very close to the unthinkable."

"Greg is right," John added, coming to Lestrade's rescue without being aware of it. "Yeah, Greg's damn right. We're going home, Sherlock. You're exhausted... and I'm not much better. What happened here is..."

But the words stopped on his lips when he saw Sherlock shake from a tremor that he obviously couldn't control.

"Come on, now let's go home," John repeated, approaching the detective who, with his eyes closed and his complexion paler than ever, seemed frozen on the spot.

Lestrade brought his jacket closer to his body. It definitely didn't protect him from the increasingly bitter gusts as the night progressed. He made a gesture with his hand showing the dark windowed coupé waiting for the two men a little further on.

"Go on, leave now, I'll take over," he said, pointing to members of his team who, in the white halo of police cars, were still examining the scene. In a last effort, Sherlock approached Lestrade, his lips blued by the cold and fatigue. "You'll take care, won't you... Greg?" he uttered, insisting slightly on the first name.

Without answering, his heart beating too hard, too fast, Gregory Lestrade slowly walked away. For the first time, despite the fact that he and the detective had been living together in each other's shadow for a long time, Sherlock had just called him by his first name.

As if stunned, wavering under the surprise, he leaned against the car in which Sally was waiting for him. With a weary gesture, he searched the pocket of his jacket for a pack of cigarettes soaked by rain. He looked sharply at Sherlock and John’s car, which was moving away into the night, and exhaled a long puff of smoke. He then closed his eyes, feeling the world of certainties cracking. A world in which, he realised brutally, he had lived until this very day.

_‘Greg’... oh, fuck... he knows._

                                                                   

* * *

 

Greg approached the vehicle where the killer was locked up and began the inextricable process of sending her back to her prison. He only wished one thing: to get rid of all these formalities as quickly as possible and go find Mycroft, who probably was still at Sherrinford. As the inspector was rushing into the car with his assistant, he felt his mobile phone vibrating against his thigh. His nervousness was such that it was with a shaky hand that he pulled the phone out of his pocket under Sally's falsely detached gaze.

**It would be a good thing to contact him. A**

For a few seconds Greg looked at his phone, not understanding. The screen darkened and the contact face gradually faded from the screen. The car's interior, which had just been briefly illuminated, plunged back into darkness. The phone vibrated again and Greg couldn't help startling again. He exhaled a long sigh.

"All right, Boss?" Sally asked as she looked at her supervisor, whose pale face spoke volumes about his inner turmoil. The day had been long and more than trying. John Watson had only been saved from death at the very last possible moment and Sherlock, even in Sally's eyes, had seemed so lost, so devastated, that the young woman seemed to have put aside the usual coldness she showed him on every occasion.

She was aware of the personal ties between Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and Gregory Lestrade. She had felt respect and loyalty to her supervisor from the first day of their collaboration; she knew how deeply the danger faced by the two men at Sherrinford today had upset the Inspector when he’d become aware of the facts, and so had taken the lead for him.

Without answering Sally (whom he had barely heard), Greg looked at his phone again.

**Detective inspector? A**

**How is he? GL**

This time the Inspector responded immediately, looking at the screen where the face of the same young woman appeared. The answer came a few minutes later: brief, but meaningful; the words chosen, it seemed to him, with a caution and neutrality that alarmed him even more.

**Support seems necessary and urgent. A**

Greg felt a wave of anxiety invading him. Sherlock's last words had already shaken him up, but the young woman's message only confirmed his concerns. Anthea had never before approached him directly in this way. Greg felt a nauseating wave burning his throat and a raging sweat suddenly soaking his hands.

_Oh Myc. What have they done to you?_

**Where? When? GL**

**I'll call you back. A**

The phone vibrated again and Greg answered immediately.

"I'm sending you the coordinates of the base in Exeter where our services will bring Mr. Holmes back. He _should_ arrive in a few hours; I’m not sure exactly when, but in the morning anyway. I have received clear instructions from secret service personnel not to go there. I don't think that applies to you. Mr. Holmes could call me to pick up his brother and John Watson, but I think he will be prohibited from communicating with anyone... if it hasn't been done so already. And you know that if it’s a question of national security, things will be done under rather drastic conditions – particularly solitary confinement, at least for the duration of an interrogation. But all that is just procedure... that's not what really worries me."

"Okay," Greg continued after a period of reflection, "and so apart from the fact that he will be treated as the last of the terrorists right after everything he has been through, what does really ‘worry’ you?” 

"Well... first of all, the case of Holmes v. Holmes - as it is beginning to be referred to at the highest level - is already the subject of much discussion about its outcome. Many people who are at the forefront of this problem are aware that Mr. Holmes has done everything possible to reconcile several objectives, all at the cost of heavy sacrifices... which, as you see, is also my point of view. But this is not the case for everyone; others are already trying to make him pay a high price for all this."

At the end of the line, Anthea hesitated and then spoke again. "And... you... I don't know if... "

The police officer did not let the young woman finish her sentence. He rung off abruptly after thanking her. He then focused on the route they were driving and landscape to stem the wave of anguish that was now turning into disgust. He felt his heart compressed in a vice at the thought of Mycroft, alone and locked up for hours with a dead man near him, with the full conscience of what had happened, now soon perhaps accused of being the only one responsible for all this.

What he wanted to answer Anthea, what he was now saying to himself, seemed to him an even more irrefutable truth.

_We will face this together, my love...._

"Sally, we're changing direction. To Exeter. I'll drive," he threw in a dry, fast voice that allowed no contradiction. Sally shrugged her shoulders.

"That’s bullshit, Boss. You're exhausted. Get in the back. Lie down. Sleep for three hours, and then we'll see." She then added, mumbling, "I don't want to risk my life if you're driving."

"Oh Sally," the DI sighed, looking overwhelmed.

"What, ‘Oh, Sally’? Saying I'm wrong? You don't want to fuck up, and you're not functioning properly."

"Stop mothering me. I'm not made of glass. I can still drive!" Lestrade retorted, his nerves ready to explode.

"And you stop grumbling. For once, do as you're told, Inspector," she said with a smirk. "Sleep, get some strength." She added with a lower voice, as if she was allowing herself to cross a line she had never crossed before, "someone will need you."

                               

* * *

 

 

In the coupé heading towards London, John Watson was looking at Sherlock. The detective had rested at the other end of the seat, his body stiffened, and leant his forehead against the window. With his eyes closed, the detective seemed even more than usual to be withdrawn as in himself, inaccessible to the world and to those around him.

He had not said a word since speaking to Lestrade earlier. He had rushed into the car and sunken into, as much as possible, the neck of his Belstaff. He had first looked straight ahead, his hands flat on his knees in an attitude that revealed both total exhaustion and extreme tension. John had no choice but to notice the detective's blue temple where Eurus had tried to reach him, in a desperate gesture of both fear and attack.

"Let me see if you'd like," he tried, brushing his hand lightly and pointing to the wound half-hidden under the black curls. But Sherlock, in a sudden movement, threw his head away and took refuge on the other side, avoiding John's delicate and cautious gesture.

The latter was not discouraged. "Hey Sherlock," he said gently, "I'm a doctor, remember? Let me see; you're still bleeding a little bit, you know." And since the detective didn't seem to want to be approached, the doctor moved his hand away and simply asked, "Does it hurt ?"

"No, John," Sherlock replied, in a low voice that actually meant the opposite. As he said the words, he collapsed into the deepest part of the leather seat of the car and leaned his cheek against the window pane. His right hand had rested on his eyes, as if to protect them from any intrusion of light, and his left hand had not stopped tapping nervously on the bench ever since.

Silence settled between the two men, heavy with the events they had just experienced. John still felt the icy terror of the dark water of the well ready to swallow it up. Even though there was a comfortable warmth in the car, he felt – to the very depths of his being – like he was being engulfed by the inexorable rise of the dark and nauseating flow.

Sherlock had now closed his eyes. He seemed to be dozing, but John could see his left eyelid shaking with uncontrolled jolts and his carotid artery beating too fast. Was he reliving the moment when he thought Molly was going to die before his eyes? Was he thinking about Victor? The reasons why the child died? Did he hear his brother's manipulative words intended to kill him rather than the doctor? Did he feel the steel barrel of the revolver sticking out under his throat, while the fatal countdown was reducing what he had left to live for?

_Once again, Sherlock, you wanted to die for me... ?_

 "Sherlock, talk to me," John whispered. "Come back, talk to me," he repeated. But the detective didn't answer. He seemed to be gone… gone somewhere in the meanders of his memory. It was more than the doctor could bear at that moment when, again, he had almost been taken away from Sherlock. John, in a final effort to reach his friend, whispered in an almost inaudible voice, as if only for himself, "you're not alone, Sherlock; being alone is not what will protect you..."

But while the doctor, discouraged, thought that once again Sherlock had made the choice of solitude, he felt the young man come closer to him; his hesitant hand slipping into his own, the detective's long thin thumb gently and continuously stroking inside his palm.

              

* * *

 

From the restless half-sleep where he was immersed, Greg heard Sally speak in a low voice on the police car's on-board radio. "I'm not waking him up. It will wait. No, I'm telling you, he needs to sleep and anyway... "

The rest of the young woman's words got lost in the mist of heavy sleep that Greg could not completely get rid of. He had laid down in the back seat of the vehicle and could feel the blanket that Sally had thrown on him to warm him up. The raspy wool smelled of old tobacco, but as uncomfortable as it was, it nevertheless offered a welcome warmth. Greg curled up on his side, knees almost up to his chin, looking for more warmth.

His thoughts, confused, came and went without order. Sometimes it was the image of John, whom had been taken out of the semi-drowned well; sometimes it was the image of Eurus' crazy eyes, whispering meaningless words, handcuffed between the two police officers; or sometimes Sherlock's face, upset as never before, came to overlap the other two. Sherlock, usually so clairvoyant, seemed to no longer understand anything: his eyes went from John to his sister and back to John, as if to make sure that the doctor was alive. And in this indescribable kaleidoscope, what kept resurfacing in Greg's mind was Anthea's message on the black screen of his phone, which beeped and struck in the night: _urgent, urgent, urgent, urgent_...

Mobilizing all his will, Greg managed to get out of a sluggish state and straightened himself by stretching his back.

 "Awake, Boss?" Sally asked as she looked in her rearview mirror.

"Have I slept for long?"

"It's almost 5:00... Coffee?" Sally asked. "We're almost in Exeter. We should take a break."

"Did I fucking sleep that much? Yes, a coffee is good," Greg whispered in an endless yawn. He rubbed his eyes and put one hand in his nascent beard. Words spoken a short time ago resonated in him.

_Greg, for heaven's sake, please... first.... shave, you know I don't like it when you sting..._

Approaching a break area, Sally stopped the car. It was still dark, and dirty spittle was wetting the vehicle's windshield. The young woman took a thermos out of a bag and poured a large cup of coffee into a cup that she handed to Greg.

 "No sugar, as usual, Boss?"

"Thank you, Sally," Greg replied, suffocating another yawn. "I'm going out for some fresh air, and I really need a cigarette," he added.

A icy breeze greeted him as he stepped out of the vehicle. Lighting a cigarette and warming both hands against the hot coffee cup, Greg took shelter under a tree and leaned heavily against the trunk, letting himself be overwhelmed by the pungency mix of coffee and tobacco. He breathed deeply, letting his gaze wander over the sky. The colours of the barely visible dawn brought back the memory of the morning when he and Mycroft woke up together - the only one, trapped between an endless night of investigations and a departure for a diplomatic meeting on the other side of the planet. ‘Here is the dawn with her fingers like roses’, he had heard whispered in his ear instead of the usual strident alarm on his phone.

Greg inhaled a deep puff of cigarette smoke and his memory, always anxious to ward off the anguish, brought him back again to when it all started between them – in front of the hospital where Sherlock had been admitted the day before in critical condition after being shot in the chest. It was also cold and the rain had pounded his face to the side. He had spent part of the night with John in the waiting room, watching for the doctors' comings and goings.

Yes, it had happened in a much unexpected way and time, even though he had not been able to prevent himself for some time from letting thoughts of a certain nature drift towards Sherlock's brother, the enigmatic Mycroft Holmes. The two men had indeed acknowledged, for a while, a certain attraction for each other. A few meetings, a drink shared occasionally, glances exchanged, hands brushed a little by chance had let them see that, perhaps, there was a promise to come.

When dawn came, and they had been told that the young man was fine, Greg had put John in a taxi and allowed himself, after the doctor left, to have a cigarette, smoked nervously, in front of the hospital; each quick puff soothing the anxiety that, all night, had upset his nerves. That's when he saw him arrive and get out of the black limo. The driver had sheltered him under an umbrella. The man's pale face, stuffed in his impeccably cut three-piece suit, showed no particular emotion but his extreme pallor had stricken Greg.

"Mycroft, I thought you were in France... You've been able to come back last night? Thank God, thank God! He is out of the woods,” Greg immediately told him. “Come on, I'll take you to the 15th floor. He's in the intensive care unit. But it's okay, it's okay, I'm sure," he added very quickly when he saw Mycroft's upset expression. "You know your brother, a real miracle on legs... he will recover, as usual."

The inspector then guided Mycroft, still silent and more reserved than ever, through the corridors. On the threshold of the door, he had let him pass in front of him and stopped. "I'll leave you with your brother. Only one visitor at a time. No more than five minutes. That's the rule. And it's strict. He needs the most absolute calm."

Mycroft turned around and, with a tense face, pronounced very simply, "Thank you, Lestrade."

The next day, that idiot Sherlock had slipped out of his hospital room, striking his entourage with terror, whom were already very distressed by his attempted murder. Greg had stopped by to review the research with Mycroft, whom he found sitting at his desk, focused on a computer screen. He had not raised his eyes to his visitor, whom had been standing the whole time of the discussion, and had indicated to him in a very offhand manier, with a simple movement of the back of his hand that the meeting was over.

"What does that mean? Who do you think I am?" Greg had asked, disappointed.

Mycroft had looked up at his interlocutor and realized the scope of his gesture. He had risen, paling as quickly as his movements, and had pressed a button to get in touch with a nearby room. "Anthea, my dear, can you take over the Warsaw case, please? Yes, thank you very much."

He then had turned to Greg, leaning on his desk. "I'm sorry... I could tell you that Sherlock's disappearance worries me, that this problem in Poland required my full attention, but none of this makes the way I treated you excusable... you, who has been there for us for so long, and who... represents so much... so much more... "

And that's when everything had changed. Greg had seen Mycroft stagger and only had time to go around the desk to catch him. He had held him back, felt erratic breathing on his chest and shortness of breath on his shoulder. A simple glance was enough for the officer to determine that the discomfort was medically insignificant, simply caused by fatigue, stress, and neglected nutrition, in the order and importance one would like. But what he had believed for months – years, perhaps - to be only a slight feeling of annoyance had then exploded and spread inside him like the breath of a bomb.

He had come even closer to Mycroft and had whispered to him, "no, please, that's enough. I don't want to see you like this anymore, with all the things you put up with because of Sherlock, he hurts you, he has to stop..."

And Mycroft, too, had replied, with such a natural familiarity that Greg had his breath taken away. "It's not just Sherlock, and you too have to bear a lot from him."

"Yes, but it's not the same" he replied. Then, he had managed to get Mycroft to sit down next to him and make him drink the orange juice from an intact meal tray left there a few hours before. Recovering colour, gradually taking the glass back into his hands, Mycroft couldn't take his eyes off Greg.

"You have to rest a little now, but above all, have something to eat again soon, otherwise it will be worse. I don't want to see you like this anymore, is that clear?" His intonation, which he had wanted without appeal on the last sentence, broke completely but he wanted to regain control of the emotions that overwhelmed him once again. And it was in an almost exasperated voice that he whispered, "both impossible, the Holmes brothers..."

But while the police officer was expecting an ironic smile, he had seen Mycroft's face decompose, his eyes shining with contained tears. He was breathing noisily, his eyes empty. Without thinking, Greg had approached Mycroft and had hugged him, as if to comfort him. As if only physical contact could have alleviated his distress. Abandoning his usual restraint, Mycroft had placed his head on the inspector's shoulder, the heat of his wounded breath burning the other man's neck.

"Oh, Greg..."

"It's okay, Mycroft, it's okay, calm down, calm down, calm down," Greg had repeated tirelessly, like a lullaby...

                                                                                                           

* * *

 

"It's all right, Mycroft, calm down."

... As he inhaled the last puff of his cigarette in that freezing early morning, Lestrade could still hear his own words and feel Mycroft Holmes' panting breath pulsating against his neck. A moment had come when Mycroft had put his hand on his partner's cheek, trying to attract him even closer. They had approached each other again, then Mycroft leaned over, and Greg followed his lead. Above all, he recalled that precise moment of the sensation of his own heart, as if leaping out of his chest, as in a reassuring hold he embraced this man who, for months, had been coming and going in his mind in a nascent expectation. A sudden heat had spread through his belly. Unintentionally, he had hardened and, in return, discerned the same response in the other man.

But Greg then had interlaced their fingers and, at the cost of immense effort on his behalf, stepped back slightly. "Wait... I would like... Myc, I want this, but I don't want us to do something we’ll regret afterwards. Besides, I have to go to help your colleagues look for your brother. I have to bring John back; he's also very worried, he’s waiting for me in the car. When it all gets better, well, if you want... if you're still..."

The words had also been tied in his throat, and Mycroft had probably perceived it, because he had added, "you're right... about everything... I'll call you. And I promise you I’ll be careful," he had murmured in a half smile.

And then Mycroft had recovered. He got up and went to his office, a nervous hand readjusting his semi-loose tie. It was Mycroft Holmes again, reserved, contained, distant... but the man's gaze, when he looked up at Greg Lestrade, had meant much more than this forced removal. A surprise, a desire, a field of possibilities ready to blossom.

Then the Inspector looked at him, with a soothing smile. "Are you feeling better, Mycroft?"

And Mycroft had answered very simply, "thank you, yes, Gregory." 

Greg had shaken their hands again and left. To this memory, the Inspector crushed his still-smoking cigarette butt under his foot.

 "Sally, how much time do we have left until we arrive at Exeter?"

 


	2. Blows and Wounds

Sitting on the narrow bench, Mycroft Holmes was thinking. Thinking was all remained to him. A few days ago, he was running the world, behind the desk of his London office. Today, after the Sherrinford debacle, he was no one.

The night before, when the MI5 agents had stormed the fortress, he had been foundalone in a cell without light and whithouth a single noise which could have let him know the situation. The director of the prison? Dead ... Sherlock and Dr. Watson? Missing ... His sister Eurus, who had dragged them all in her murderous game and madness? Vanished somewhere ... Two men had brought Mycroft out of the room, asked him to confirm his identity and security number. In the helicopter where he had been brought without any excess of care, he found his briefcase, his phone and his umbrella. Sitting in the back, there was an agent, his eyes detached and cold, a gun in his hand. Mycroft had been secured with a belt; he had barely been allowed time to contact Anthea and share a few words with Greg.

_I cannot talk to you very long. I ... Sherlock and John ... ?  Do you know if ...?_

The pilot had already started the rotor and, through the radio, precise anonymous orders had been sent:

 **MH Extraction completed. Ensure isolation and security. I repeat. Ensure isolation and security.  
**   
His laptop had been removed in that moment, impatient hands had searched him brutally and he had been stripped of his belt, his tie and his shoelaces.

"How kind of you," he had tried ironically, but his usual alacrity had fallen completely flat, and the irony had been engulfed in the metallic sound of the helicopter's rotor.

The flight between Sherrinford and the Exeter base had been hell. Not only had he been brutalized by the air pockets and sickened by the smell of gasoline, but also scrutinized constantly by the security man, who constantly watched his hands. When Mycroft, to dry his forehead soaked with a cold sweat, had wanted to take the delicate silk handkerchief he always kept from his trousers’ pocket , the man had brutally interrupted his gesture by grabbing his shoulder. Mycroft had smothered a groan, but the bodyguard did not release the pressure until he first ensured that his prisoner was totally safe.

_What do they fear? That I hijack the helicopter? That I run away? That I end my days?_

_  
_ A bitter smile formed on his lips and Mycroft closed his eyes to avoid seeing the pitching of the helicopter. Everything seemed to turn around him and, in a wave of dizziness, he thought he was going to vomit. Quite brutally, the helicopter nosedived and plunged to the ground to land softly in the middle of an esplanade lit by pale spotlights. The rotor stopped and there was nothing but the scathing sound of the wind breaking against the walls of the dark building at the end of the ground. Mycroft had remained motionless, tied to his seat, while the helicopter had landed.

"Mr. Holmes, please come out," a guard who had been waiting for him at the door of the aircraft had repeated several times.

Again, the brutal hands of the security officer pulled him out of this pretended torpor and pushed him unceremoniously out. Mycroft took in with a glance the surrounding. Two cars were waiting to drive him inside the base. There was no way to escape what was waiting for him. It was not going to be a pleasure. He knew it. The price to pay for all the mistakes he had made was going to be very high.

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When the car stopped, just before dawn, in front of 221B Baker Street, John Watson got out first. The facade of the building still bore traces of the violent explosion that had hit their apartment some time before. Outside the door, Sherlock paused. He had stayed silent all the time and if John had not been there to open, he would have remained there to shiver under the gusts of rain with a glazed expression.

"Come on, we're going upstairs."

John grabbed him by the arm to make him climb the seventeen steps that led to the apartment. Up there, a depressing spectacle greeted them with its raw and violent reality. Mrs. Hudson must have hurriedly contacted some of the workers because the ripped windows had been covered and the heaviest debris had been gathered on one side, but everything else had shattered and strewed all over the ground.

"Fuck ..." John hissed between his teeth, anger replacing everything else, the exhaustion and fear, and beyond that, the disgust that had ceaselessly gripped him during Sherrinford's hell. He walked towards the fireplace and repeated:

"Fuck, fuck, fuck ... If I had in my hands those who did that ..." With the tip of his foot, he moved away the cushion of his chair, which laid on the ground half-burned. Underneath, the stuffed toy of his daughter appeared, stained with the plaster that had been deposited everywhere during the explosion, and the head forming a strange angle with the body. As John mechanically bent down to pick up the toy, he felt Sherlock's hand rest firmly on his shoulder.  
  
" Stop."

John got up and turned towards the detective. It was no longer the man damaged by the hardships, who, during the night, had remained frozen without a word in the car. It was Sherlock again, his eyes shining, his nostrils on the lookout, taking in the devastated room with a glance ... Sherlock, still wrapped in his dark, rain-soaked coat, as if detached from himself, and only concerned about possible clues the bomber could have left.

"Sherlock, you ...?" But the detective had already turned away. He added:

"Do not move."

Sherlock had cautiously approached the window, and with his long, thin fingers, was exploring their wooden frame. A kind of smile lit up his face, he brought his eyes closer to the frame, which he examined with extreme attention.

"Sherlock ...? John asked again, worried. He did not answer. The doctor then saw him scrape the strip of wood and bring his index finger to his lips, then sniff it and throw his head back with disgust.

"Sherlock ...? John asked for the third time. The desire to understand almost outweighed the anger that had seized him when he saw the devastated apartment. Sherlock stooped slowly. An almost invisible thread was stretched from the wall where the window was to the leather chair, which had flown to the other side of the room but was still strangely intact. It was the detective's turn to swear quietly between his lips as he turned to the doctor to finally answer him.  
"Here, smell this ..."

John jerked back when he sensed the smell of chlorine on Sherlock's hand.

  
"Yes, John, an explosive with ammonium nitrate and chlorine. They really did not want to fail ... it's one of the best performing mixtures out there. Look, there was even a double dose," he added, pointing to the thread that was hanging on the chair. On the back of it, John saw a tiny patch of mastic, which had not escaped Sherlock's sharp eye.

"Still charged?" the doctor whispered in an almost silent interrogation, as if he feared that a too strong noise could be the source of a new detonation ...

 "I do not think so," said Sherlock, "it's a rather volatile mixture," he added with an excited smile. "The person who did it was not very clever." He squatted by the chair and looked closely at the piece of matt mastic glued to the leather. His hand advanced very slowly toward the wire.  
  
 "No, Sherlock, no ..." and when John said these words, in a flash, he saw Sherlock, a few years ago, about to swallow, in a suicidal challenge, the capsule that had been proposed to him, by the half-crazy taxi driver. Finally, it was always the same Sherlock, whose pleasure of defying death was above everything and everyone ...

"There's only one way to be sure ...” and before John could stop him, he'd yanked the wire, and nothing exploded.

“You see, as usual, I was right ...” he added, with the expression of incredible pleasure that a child who just nailed to an adult would have. “And now, it's over ... " he hummed, looking smug and happy.

It was too much for the doctor. His exhaustion, and even more the anger that had built up in him when he had seen the ravaged apartment and his daughter's toy in the middle of the wreckage, made him turn his back without a word. He rushed and climbed the stairs four by four reaching his old room, which, miraculously, had escaped the explosion and threw himself on his bed, facing the wall, smothering in the pillow what was half a cry of rage and half a sob of returning fear. He could feel the blood pushed by his distraught heart pulsing heavily in his sweaty palms.

_Impossible ... He's impossible ... I do not ..._

But as he was overwhelmed by the most nonsense thoughts, he heard the stairs creak and the door of the room open.

"John," said Sherlock's hesitant voice... As the doctor, divided between tears and exasperation, did not answer, he felt the bed's mattress sink. "John," he heard again, this time with a sort ... yes that was it, a hint of worry.

  
He was about to turn around when he felt a long form behind him, tightly matching the form of his own body and Sherlock's face nestling in his neck. A warm hand slipped under the sweater he had not removed, came to rest on his belly, and began to touch, in a circular and gentle gesture, his silky concavity. Under the slow and unexpected caress, the beating of his heart, at first even more irregular, gradually subsided while Sherlock's breathing, lingering behind his ear, calmed the last jolts of dry sobs that raised his chest. The detective's elegant hand finally snuggled right on his hip and the doctor felt his friend's breathing get warmer against his skin.

  
"John, I ..." the detective began, his voice lower and deeper than usual. He stopped abruptly, as if the words he was going to say were going too far, as if the usual Sherlock, the one who was frightened by feelings, resurfaced. With a half-squeaky, half-worried intonation, he suddenly asked: "By the way, in the car did you receive any news about brother dear?"

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Entering the suburbs of the city, Sally had stopped the flashing police light that had allowed them to drive through the road to Exeter at an indecent speed, feeling the anxiety of the police officer sitting next to her growing as quickly as they approached. She saw him crossing and uncrossing his legs nervously, fidgeting, fiddling with his mobile phone with one hand while the other mechanically searched in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He had not stopped, for an hour, to draw strange figures on the misted glass of the car. He was elsewhere, obviously. ...  
  
Until recently, Sally thought she knew her boss by heart. Loyal, insightful, he went to the end of each investigation, following every clue, without ever, never giving up. With his team, he had a heart of gold. Yes of course, in the morning, when he arrived at the Met, she had to place a hot, sugar-free coffee in his hand before anything else, even before she dared to say a whispered hello. He arrived early in the office, always preceded by his vetiver fragrance, his eyes a little crumpled, the skin of the face rosy by the morning shave ... but by mid-morning, he already had a stubble and when, sometimes, his elder twenty-something daughter, passed by to say hello after law school, she always started by saying:

"Oh dad, you are stinging!"

His divorce three years ago had not been easy. Since then, he had darkened, diving even more into his team and his work. There had been two or three fleeting interests. The young lady -a cardiologist- he had dated for two months; and then, that guy, that tall brown man who was waiting for him on the other side of the street when he came out of the office. They hadn't interested him for long. As a result, the policeman often volunteered for the weekend shifts, except when he left to make a trip to Dartmoor on his Harley from time to time. Gregory Lestrade was a motorcycle enthusiast. A real fan. In the team, everyone knew it. At the Met, as everywhere, the rumors and gossips about the private life of each other were common among colleagues, but nobody would have dared to say anything about the boss. He was upright, simply and completely. Everyone agreed on that. He was turning heads of many female colleagues: his cockney side was charming, a little off, certainly, but, yes, really charming.

Only Sally, however, saw the signs. It all had begun after the serious injury of the consultant who came to help them during the investigations that went nowhere, the consultant she did not appreciate at all. In her heart, and sometimes even aloud, she called him freak, because he seemed to take an indecent pleasure in examining the scenes of the most abominable crimes. This Sherlock Holmes was the opposite of his boss, who had a deep respect for the victims and a deep sensitivity, albeit humble. When Sherlock Holmes had been wounded and had disappeared from the hospital the day after the murder attempt, Grégory Lestrade had been in charge of the investigation, at the request of the consultant's brother, the all-powerful Mycroft Holmes. According to him, he held only a minor position in the government, but Sally, over the months, had more or less understood the importance of his role. She had also seen the high-ranking civil servant and the policeman come closer. Initially, the relationship was purely professional; then there had been a departure from the office a little earlier than usual on a Thursday night. Phone calls exchanged during the day. There had been that day when "Mr. Holmes" had turned into "Mycroft". And then, especially, there was this second helmet that he had begun to bring with him and put in a corner of the office, a red hair hanging on the strap. Sally was not an investigator for nothing ... The young woman thought she knew Grégory Lestrade by heart. She was soon to discover the opposite ...

When the day before the team had been mobilized for the arrest of a killer who had attacked Sherlock Holmes and his partner John Watson, Sally had seen hes boss break down. When the detective had told him that his brother was also a victim and had asked him to rescue Mycroft, Sally had seen the police officer blush. His face was suddenly tense and, after dealing with the formalities of the arrest of the criminal, he had demanded to drive the police car. Gregory Lestrade was a biker. He rarely drove the cars of the force. Thus, Sally had run towards Exeter, the warning light shrieking through the dark night, while, in the back of the vehicle, she had heard the police officer shake in a half-sleep all night. Now that they had almost reached their destination, he had fallen into a disturbing silence, tenser than ever.

Sipping a second hot coffee Sally had just given him, Greg could not stop his mind from going around in circles. He could not stand it any longer, so he opened his cell phone and frantically typed a hasty message.

**Any news? GL**

The screen remained black for a few minutes and then lit up.

**It is serious. An interrogation more than a debriefing, I'm afraid. AT**

The screen darkened, but a second message followed almost immediately.

**Release scheduled at 7.00 this morning. AT**

"Sally, what time is it? How long does it take before we arrive?” Greg asked immediately.

“It is 6.15, we're almost there, boss.” And indeed, Sally had just entered a suburb district with a fuzzy outline, a mixture of offices, small residential complexes and green squares bordered by straight roads where the traffic was the typical one of early hours in the morning. She stopped the vehicle along a sidewalk a hundred meters from a building that looked at first sight common and anonymous, but its walls were protected by rolls of barbed wire. The day was just beginning and the light was still that of the early morning mixed with the pink flashes of the still lit lampposts. In front of the main door, a black armored car was already parked. Greg examined the scene, quickly thinking; he spoke again, in a hurried voice:

"That's the plan, Sally. We are hiding here. You keep the engine on. At a quarter to seven I go out, I intercept the target. I bring him here and we leave. Got it? We have to be fast.” He added: "The two guys watching through the open window, right next door ... they look awkward and certainly are not admiring the landscape!"

“The ‘target’, boss?” Sally asked with a smirk. She knew whom her superior was talking about. She had seen Mycroft Holmes sometimes at Scotland Yard and had noted the stiffness of his posture, mixed with a form of courtesy, albeit distant and formal, but so different from the behavior of the other Holmes ... She quickly felt mixed feelings, remembering the facts they had been informed about the day before, during the night and in the early morning hours. After all, wasn’t the burden of past mistakes weighing on Mycroft Holmes's shoulders? Hadn’t he tried to manipulate dangerous people for the sake of his career, for example by kidnapping his own sister and taking her away from their parents? Sally sighed, a little annoyed.

"Really, ‘the target ‘?”

"Oh Sally, please, not now ..." the police officer replied , feeling his face blush a little.

 _I should have taken my bike, I should have taken my bike,_ Greg kept on repeating to himself. _Faster, more efficient, more agile ..._ He would have given anything to pick his "target", like that, in the face of the threatening black car and agents who, like him - he was sure – were watching Mycroft Holmes. After all this, after Anthea's message, there was no more illusion: the Home Office certainly did not intend to stop there.

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Greg scanned the high door of the building. A few minutes passed slowly. Anthea had said seven o'clock. He would not go out before. The police officer closed his eyes, letting his mind drift. His thoughts kept going back to Mycroft, detained, questioned, perhaps hurt, obviously vulnerable. In an effort to escape this vain internal turmoil, Greg began to thinkabout when everything had begun between them. Mycroft’s office. His slight discomfort. His total exhaustion after the attempted murder on Sherlock; the run of this idiot from the hospital. Greg had forced Mycroft to eat.

_I do not want to see you like that anymore, with all that you withstand because of Sherlock, it hurts you, it has to stop ..._

His own words still echoed in him. Later, Greg had returned home, not really realizing what had happened. But the next day, after the night, when he had reviewed and replayed the scene a thousand times behind his closed eyes, an intense heat in the most intimate parts of his body had prevented him from finding sleep, and the meaning of that moment had appeared in all its strength. Without thinking further, he had taken his cell phone.  
  
**Tonight. 19 p.m.? GL**

The answer was so immediate that it was almost indecent.

**Lonwdes Square, Knightbridge. MH**

Greg had gone to pick up Mycroft on his motorbike. The other man was waiting for him, not on the very edge of the sidewalk, sheltered from general view, in three-piece suit, impeccable as usual. Greg had smiled.

_Fortunately, he does not have his umbrella._

He had handed him a helmet and also a warm parka he always kept in his trunk just in case. He would never forget the look Mycroft had given him at that moment. His clear eyes astonished, a little fuzzy, a little shy ...

"Here, put on my jacket, it will protect you," Greg said very simply. Mycroft had grabbed the warm clothes, looked at Greg, straight in the eyes, and before covering himself, had slowly breathed the delicate scent of vetiver that permeated the dark leather.

"Are we going for a drink or would you prefer to go for a ride?” Greg asked. Mycroft did not answer right away.

"I ...," he finally began, "a ride," he murmured in a barely audible breath.

“Are you sure?” Greg said. Mycroft nodded. As he was about to put on the helmet, Greg stopped his movement.

“Wait..." He raised his head to the man who was slightly taller than him and, with infinite gentleness, because he had dreamed of this gesture all day, he put his lips on his. Greg felt Mycroft shudder under the unexpected touch. First, there was no answer. The other man was frozen. Could it be that Greg was wrong? Didn’t he feel the man's desire the day before? He was about to put an end to this nascent kiss, when Mycroft's mouth parted, accepting Greg's, leaving the policeman to brush the lips that were now open to him. Greg increased his pressure, and delicately bit the damp flesh that was giving to him, now in a hasty awkwardness. A fragrance of bergamot invaded his own mouth as Mycroft opened his more. He then heard a murmur of pleasure and he felt Mycroft come closer to him, as if driven by a greed he could not restrain.

_How much, how far I'll love you ... If you could imagine, how much, how far I'll love you ..._

_  
_ "Wait," Greg repeated, moving away a little. “Slowly. Okay? "

Without really waiting for an answer, he straddled the bike and, with a gesture, invited Mycroft to climb behind him. As he was sitting on the saddle way back, Greg turned around and said smiling:  
  
"No, not like that, put your arms around me and hold me tight ..."

And he made the engine roar before heading for the East End.

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Once again, Greg looked at the black high door. Still five minutes before 7 o'clock. He checked his gun in the holster one last time under his left arm and explained himself feverishly. "Sally, I go out, I intercept him, I come back, we leave ... understood?"

Sally winced: "I do not like it, I do not like it at all that you go alone.”

“We have no choice Sally, it's like that," he added in a tone that was not at all his usual, brittle and authoritarian, which said a lot about his anxiety.

As he walked down the sidewalk towards the MI5 building, the door opened, letting the tall silhouette of Mycroft Holmes, framed by two agents in civilian clothes, pass by. Greg accelerated and found himself within seconds very close to Mycroft. He was struck by his tall stature, shaking. He was pale, straight as a picket, wide circles under his eyes. He looked exhausted and, in addition to his exhausted pace, his eyes seemed to refuse to look towards Greg. He took another step to get out of the building and staggered. One of the officers held him by the arm to avoid a fall that seemed inevitable. Straightening, he ran a hand behind his neck, looking exhausted. He had obviously not slept for several days. His shirt collar was dirty and showed signs of visible blood stains.

_Myc, what have they done to you, what have they done to you?_

Greg felt his heart racing furiously as he saw Mycroft like that. With one last stride, he joined Mycroft and unceremoniously dismissed one of the agents.

"Mycroft," he began; but the other man cut off his speech at once, coldly looking at him, with an icy glance and an expressionless face.

"Detective Inspector, I beg you to leave immediately. You have nothing to do here." He waved his hand at the armored car whose engine was already warming up. "They are waiting for me, Detective Inspector. Do you understand? "

If Greg had the slightest desire to move, the sharp tone ended up petrifying him. Without understanding what was happening, Greg tried to put his hand on Mycroft's shoulder. The other man freed himself with a brutal movement.

"Have I not made myself clear? Mycroft said calculatingly, his eyes looking beyond Greg, as if he did not want to speak directly to the man in front of him. “I'm going back to London with my colleagues."

"But Mycroft ..." Greg replied, completely lost. His brown eyes, so usually warm and bright, had darkened to black with a fear that he already did not master. "You do not want ... I mean, you don’t want to go home with me? I need to know what happened to you, if you're fine ..."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows.

"Ah, I see ... you thought that just because we slept togethera few times ...”

“Mycroft ... what? What are you talking about? Why ... sleeping together? But it was not just ... you told me ...”

“Oh! Did you believe in something else? Let's see ... Why am I not surprised? But of course, your goldfish brain has believed in my little lies!”

“Lies ...?”

“I quickly realized that I'd have to sweet-talk you with some of those stupid little phrases to get what I wanted, just to put your pretty person and your beautiful backside in my bed. But in the end, what did you imagine that could happen between someone like me and a little cop from a rotten borough of London? Well, I think we're done here now! You can go home! I have things to do here, if you allow!”

“Mycroft, no, wait, it's not possible ... you're in shock ...”

“Shock due to what? All the rest is a problem that I will deal with my colleagues when you will be kind to leave me alone. You do not have to interfere and, to make it clear, yes, everything is over between us. You may infer that I do not really have time to have fun, even with a great toy like you. If you need someone to distract you, my services can provide you with addresses that will ensure total discretion. Now go back to where you come from, or I'll get you escorted by other means! Go, do not stay there, I do not want to repeat myself or be lectured by your sort of watchdog who is waiting for you in the car. "

Mycroft was just finishing his sentence as the bodyguard intervened:

"Haven’t you heard Mr Holmes? Disappear! Got it?"

A stream of adrenaline flooded Greg, and without even realizing it, with a violent gesture, he pushed the security agent, who wavered under the shock. The second one was dangerously close to him, the desire to start the fight clearly written on his face. And then everything went wrong. Greg rushed towards the first guard.

"You get lost," he said, banging the man's face with his clenched fist. As soon as he delivered his blow, he felt the second man violently reaching his abdomen with his foot; a blow of baton on the cheekbone followed immediately. The pain forced him to fold in two and he fell to his knees when the first officer came back to him and, with the edge of his hand, struck him on the temple. Greg saw darkness descending on his eyes and he hit the ground with his back. As in a fog, he noticed Mycroft approaching him, dominating him from his height and he heard him say:

"I do not need a little Yard cop constantly pestering me. Neither now nor never. Is this clear now?"

It was then over, as quickly as it started. Mycroft, followed by the two security guards, rushed into the black car that left, taking the direction of the exit of the city, and disappeared.

When Sally had seen the situation going badly, she had rushed out of the car to the police officer who was now lying on the ground, curled up, his face the color of ash, a large, bleeding cut on his cheekbone.

"Boss? Are you okay? Answer me! Open your eyes! Talk to me!” Sally ordered, kneeling next to Greg and looking for his pulse under the sleeve of his shirt. The police officer winced in pain, gasping, unable to answer, and when he tried to get up, an intense pain shot through his head and he fell back.

"No, don’t move, Boss, don’t move. I'll call our local colleagues and an ambulance," she continued, taking out her phone. “Damn, I knew it was going to end badly, I had a bad feeling," she grumbled.

“No," Greg cut in a breath, making another attempt to get up. "No ambulance, no hospital" and he snatched the phone from her hands with the few forces that the adrenaline, not quite gone yet, was still pumping through him. "Please, Sally," he said. "I am okay, I am okay. No need for a hospital. Just give me something to wipe. that's nothing," he insisted.

Reluctantly, Sally collected her phone and applied her handkerchief to the bleeding wound.

"Bullshit, boss and you know it. What was this attack with bare hands against the two mastiffs?” she asked with animosity. "Help me at least to get you up and running. There is an emergency kit in the car. I'll do what I can. Come on, be brave. The car is nearby.” The young woman helped Greg, who could not hold back a groan of pain when he stood up again. "Come on, we're almost there," Sally said, holding the wounded police officer with all her strength. In the car, she undertook some basic care with what was available. A bottle of water did the trick to remove, at least on his face, the flow of blood.

"Now we go home, no question here.” She said snugly. “You fasten your seatbelt and you do not move anymore, understood?"

Sitting at the front of the car, Grégory Lestrade pressed the compress Sally had given him on his cheek. He was badly hurt in the abdomen, where he had been kicked by the agent; his head was spinning and he was restraining himself from asking Sally to stop the car to calm the nausea that was wringing his stomach. His mind, fogged with pain, chaotically stirred the events that had taken place in front of the MI5 base. He considered them from all sides, and found nothing but fear and incomprehension. Again and again he was seeing Mycroft's eyes in his thoughts. These empty eyes that refused to look at him, these eyes hollowed by dark circles, the blood stains on the collar of his dirty shirt.

He heard the echo of Mycroft’s last words in his head again.

_No need for a little Yard cop ... neither now nor never._

"Sally, I want to go to..." he tried clumsily. The young woman cut him off:

"Oh no, no more shilly-shallying now, I'll take you to Baker Street. You're badly hurt, and since you do not want to go to ER, I want Dr. Watson to check you as soon as we reach London."  
In an immense effort, Greg answered:

"John and I, we did not leave in the best terms last night ... but it does not really matter anymore ...”

Suddenly, he did not have time to ask Sally to stop the vehicle. A retch seized him and he began to vomit violently. He heard from far away the young woman swear roughly and scream on the phone in a distraught voice:

“Quick, Give me Dr ...” The end of the sentence was lost in the loud rustle that pounded Greg’s head. A veil fell in front of his eyes and darkness engulfed him.

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At the end of their traumatic night, John and Sherlock had finally fallen asleep in the narrow bed of the doctor's old room. An insistent phone call woke Sherlock first. Fumbling in the dark, he saw Donovan's name appear on his mobile phone’s screen. His first reflex was to refuse the call. But when his phone vibrated again a few seconds later, and again, and again, and again, he picked up reluctantly.

"Donovan, I hope you have a real reason for ..."

The young policewoman did not let him finish.

"Quick, give me Dr. Watson, Sherlock, quick ..." The detective did not appreciate Sally Donovan much, however he recognized her serious professional qualities. So he answered in an urgent and determined voice: "What is it, Donovan, what is going on?"

"My boss ... MI5 ... he's hurt ... he's not right, and then your brother ... and he doesn’t stop bleeding ... he didn’t want to go to the hospital" Sally replied, so fast that Sherlock did not understand half of her words.

"For God's sake, Donovan, calm down! Who is injured? Where are you?”

“I'm coming to London; I'll be at Baker Street in 10 minutes. Dr. Watson ...?”

“We're here Sally, both of us. We are waiting for you downstairs. Hurry up!"

John had woken up when he heard Sherlock swear on the phone. In an instant, he had understood the situation and had caught his emergency bag. While Sally continued to summarize the facts to Sherlock -with a few swearwords directed to his brother- John made sure he understood the important pieces:

"It's about Greg, isn’t it?"

"Yes, John, it seems that my brother and he are in serious trouble," he added in a worried grimace. “Finally, I would say ... especially my brother.” But in his slightly sarcastic tone, one would have sworn that it was not displeasing him...

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John and Sherlock needed all their strength to put Greg in the upstairs bedroom; the police office seemed completely numb and at every step of the stairs he yelled out a groan of pain.

"Come on Greg, you need to lie down. Here, slowly.” John, calm and professional, had taken charge of the situation; quickly, he had checked the police officer's pulse. "Sherlock, help me, take off his shirt. Slowly … Watch out for his head.” The doctor had leaned towards Greg, who kept his eyes shut. With a precise and measured gesture, he had immediately raised the DI's eyelids and examined his pupils, worried about the policeman's reddened temple. He had then put his stethoscope on his chest, listening carefully to his friend's laborious breathing. The large hematoma on Greg's abdomen worried him the most. On examination, luckily, the belly had been soft. Nothing suggested that internal bleeding had occurred. John then looked up to reassure Donovan, who was scared out of her wits.

"He's okay Sally, you can go home. He's a bit bruised, but he's ok, I promise! Nothing serious! A little rest, a few stitches on this cheekbone and he'll be fine.” Sally had left and John had prepared himself to suture the inspector's cheek.

"Greg, it would be nice if you could now open your eyes. Talk to me. Come on, make an effort," the doctor insisted, preoccupied with the state of prostration in which his friend seemed to have plunged.

_What could have shocked him so much?_

John rubbed Greg's sternum firmly to revive him.

"I'm going to stitch you three times, your injury is superficial. It'll sting a little, but I promise, within a month, no one will see that you have been hurt. You'll be the same handsome guy. Come on Greg, open your eyes now," he encouraged again.

While talking, he began to tap the wound with a cotton pad soaked in a disinfecting liquid. Greg moaned, but immediately made a gesture of appeasement towards John.

"Sorry," said the latter, “stinging a little? A lot? It's just a bad time to suffer, you'll forget ... Anyway ... Donovan told us ..., this is not the worst thing that happened to you, is it?” He added, with a little uncertainty in his voice.

Greg wondered what he was talking about exactly; anyhow it was true, damn it, it was true. John's comment was free of reproach, uttered in the tone of the greatest sympathy, and without pushing him to share his feelings.

"Come on Greg, open your eyes now," the doctor demanded one last time.

The policeman raised his eyelids. He was as white as a towel and his lips were shaking. Visibly shocked. His gaze fell directly on Sherlock, who had been standing quietly beside the bed while John looked after him.

“Is it true?” he whispered desperately, "for you Holmeses, I'll just be no more than a mean little Yard cop...?"

While his question showed his inner despair, suddenly, against all expectations, a shower of imprecations fell on him.

"Lestrade, really," Sherlock snapped, in a supremely condescending tone, "you're just a fool! You have been played, and of course you have been fooled, and nowGod only knows where he has gone, he who is hardly less stupid than his sighting enamored and who serves me as elder brother! "

"I ... I ..." Greg started, trying to get up a little.

"Good heavens," Sherlock went on, "you're fifty years old and you react like a teenage girl stuffed with sentimental movies! And you, John, don’t you understand? I'm definitely surrounded by morons!"

Throughout his tirade, John's eyes and mouth widened due to bewilderment.

" So, gotit ? Understand a little? Well, well, explain it to him now! But finally, stir your brains, both of you!"

"Oh ... Sherlock, you think that ..." John whispered.

"Obviously, he tried to play him the same way he did with us. Listen, Lestrade ... We need to explain to you ..."

His voice shook at the memory of Eurus asking him to kill either Mycroft or his best friend. He could end the story and John was the one who took over and reluctantly told about Mycroft's game aimed at convincing Sherlock to choose him, his brother, and not John, as Eurus’ expiatory victim.

Greg felt his heart wrapped in the thought of the hardships endured by the man he could not stop thinking about, despite everything, with immense tenderness. Alone.

"Lord ... Oh ... Mycroft ... And you two," he added quickly, "but what a monster ..."

The shock wave caused by Mycroft's words a few hours ago came back to him, however.

"Why would he do this again, if it had not worked the first time? He probably has told me how he really feels about me this morning! "

"Impossible. From the beginning, he has tried to push you away from this situation. By the way...how was your surprise-seminar? See?...He has only one idea in mind, which is to protect you, even if it means trying to get you to hate him. Greg, he never told me anything, but trust me, for him, your relationship is very serious."

“And of course, he explains that by dumping me on the edge of a sidewalk.” Recovering, looking skeptical, Greg found a little strength to talk. “How do you know? A shirt collar badly tightened? A trace of I do not know what pollen on a hand?"

Sherlock looked away and stayed silent for a long moment, blushing gradually from the cheekbones to the end of the chin and the hairline.

"No,” he finally said, “I ... it could have been that, I could lie to you, but ... well, I saw you ...... one day ... both of you in front of the Yard, on your motorbike ... The way he was holding you ... I know that my brother certainly does not consider you a mere amusement, whatever word he may have used on this subject to make you hate him. He doesn't believe a single word of it."

Greg blushed in turn, and his breathing was sort of suspended, the idea that Sherlock had been the invisible witness of their nascent love, but above all the fragile hope of the offered possibility: the flood of hurtful words of this morning were like a smokescreen, and Mycroft, too, felt genuine feelings for him.

“Oh ... Sherlock ... and I let him go, without knowing where he was taken, under what conditions ... That's right, I believed in what he was telling me, but how could I?”

"We'll find him," said John. “You know, he completely tricked me too, it took his brother to find out the truth! Greg, anyway, you have to rest, I stitch your wound and afterwards you sleep. Doctor's orders," he added with a smile. “Hang on, in ten minutes, it's over.”

It was soon the end of the morning. In spite of Sherlock's coat which the detective had let fall on his ankles, Greg was cold. It was still rather cold in the apartment open to the outside, despite the covers on the windows; nevertheless, the policeman stretched himself on the couch with relief but also with a deep concern that continued to crush his chest; finding shelter under the blankets; he let his mind drift back again.

After their first kiss just in front of Greg's bike, they had a hard time finding a single night of intimacy in common. At the first opportunity, Greg had called him back and organized everything. Dinner had seemed magical. They had long discussed their expectations and fears. Greg had said he did not want a few shags without a future and without any other form of intimacy; Mycroft had expressed the fear that his work, the secrets and lies that were his world, might tarnish their relationship. Greg had tried to reassure him about this by promising to never allow himself to judge his actions; he had seen so many disgusting things during his career in the police. They had gone out, just enjoying a few steps in the darkness before thinking of what would be next. But their business phones had rang hardly a few minutes apart, and it was between laughter and resignation that they gave up their late night. Crime cases and international affairs continued to gang up against each other the following days.

One day at Baker Street, by chance, he had found Mycroft. He had noticed Mycroft's slight smile and a sparkle in his blue-gray eyes, and had the impression that the other man was just as happy as he was from this unexpected meeting. He could not help walking towards him with long strides, then putting his hands on his pale cheeks and initiating a fiery kiss. Under the effect of surprise and pleasure, Mycroft had first remained motionless, even uttering a little cry of surprise, then also began to slip into the passion of this unexpected kiss. Neither of them had wanted anything more than this simple and first intimacy, and they had taken advantage of a few minutes stolen from their busy schedules by exchanging a few words, before promising a new date as soon as possible, then regretfully parting, happy about this tender moment.

Yet, from time to time, deep inside himself, Greg could not help but think he had been stupid, that he refused to notice signs and contextual elements inviting caution, as well as the gap in their social positions or their contrasting lifestyles. Besides, they had not spent so much time together. The soft words and the "stupid little phrases" had not been the most ardent, nor really too many ... Mycroft had always seemed to keep a certain reserve ... "And me, of course ..." Greg reluctantly admitted it, but his discomfort, even if Sherlock had just reassured him, also came from the fact that he had let himself develop intense feelings for the man...

Plunged in his worried thoughts, Greg kept turning around on the sofa. A sudden jump caused a groan. John, who watched him from a distance without saying anything, put a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Come on, that's enough now ... Give me your arm, you need to sleep, I'm going to inject you with something to help you relax, you've been fidgeting on this couch for an hour.”

“But, no, John ... I ...”

  
“There is no "but no", you give me your arm or Sherlock will hold you ... and you know he's not particularly gentle in this kind of things,” the doctor said smiling.

“Am I needed?” Sherlock shouted, making it clear he had not lost a single bit of what was happening.  
  
"It's fine, I guess..." John whispered gently, taking Greg's wrist. The policeman then raised his sleeve obediently. With a gentle hand, John injected the product.

“Let yourself go now, close your eyes and sleep,” the doctor ordered.

"Yes, but not long ..." Greg protested. “Myc...”

"Lestrade, could you stop saying my brother's name every five minute?" Sherlock grunted. “It's really ... boring! And besides, you've been told to sleep! "

John looked down at Greg and saw, reassured, his friend falling into a restful sleep.

Good hours of rest had passed when he regained consciousness with the feeling of a presence at his side. His professional reflexes, coupled with the effects of the tension of the last hours, made him leap from the sofa and try to spot the threat. It was embodied in a woman a few years older than him, with very light blonde hair and bright eyes. He remained frozen on the spot and managed to articulate only one word.

"Mrs...”

“Alicia Smallwood ... You're Detective Inspector Lestrade, who works with Mr. Holmes, aren't you? I guess explosions do not help to keep the doors locked.”

“Yes ... no ... of course,”Greg managed to say , remembering the tired tone with which Mycroft sometimes spoke about his closest collaborator, Anthea aside. “You are here to see Sherlock, I suppose? I go..."

Greg cut his sentence as the bedroom door opened.

"Oh, Lady Smallwood, to what do we owe the pleasure?"

The formality of the chosen terms did not mislead anyone, and after a few minutes, Alicia asked what she wanted from the detective.

"I do not want to remind you of painful events, but your brother has not really covered his back during his Sherrinford management. Someone knows more than he should and does not intend to keep it to himself, find him for me, Mr. Holmes, please, before he can continue."

She pulled a tablet out of a bag, lit it, and handed it to the three men. It was a newspaper page with a few lines of text, a relatively old photograph of Mycroft, and this title:

**Rivers of blood on the hands of a government agent.**

"They are not sure about the title, but they are determined to release that."

It was the cover of a daily newspaper, to be printed, including the date of the next day.

 

 


	3. Personal Demons

Mycroft watched the thin, scarlet liquid trickle along the white ceramic. 

The blood had splashed to the edge of the brass tap and formed something at the bottom of the sink that resembled the petals of a blurred poppy. 

He had done a lot of damage shaving. 

A bottle of vodka already started was in a precarious balance on the marble. An open box of pills accompanied it. Blood ran down Mycroft's face, but he did not even feel the pain. 

The vibration of the phone felt like the prick of a sharp knife. Why had he not been able to resist the temptation to turn it on again? Reading the messages brought him back to the chaos of the previous week.

The media campaign that had followed the events of Sherrinford had spread rapidly and virulently, despite the progress in Sherlock's investigation. The detective had been with him, who was the main target of the attacks, and John was not left out of it either. Mycroft had taken refuge in the Diogenes Club and had taken countless precautions so that only a very small number of people knew about it. 

Of course, there were calls, voice messages, SMS, all were left unanswered:

 **4 days ago.**   **"Mycroft, where are you? Are you okay? GL "**

**4 days ago. "Have they ever told you that you are the greatest of idiots? GL "**

**3 days ago. "I'm very worried, answer me, please. GL "**

**2 days ago. "If you try to get away, it's not working, I'll always be there for you. GL "**

And today.

**At 10 o'clock: "Only a good ass in your bed"? Is that all I was for you? GL "**

**At 10:30 am: "Mycroft, talk to me. GL "**

**At 10h 35: "Myc. Please. GL "**

Mycroft felt nothing. 

An immense hatred of himself overwhelmed him, eliminating everything else, almost the senseless desire to go to him, right now, and tell him again and again that he loved him, how much he loved him. A sense of imminent loss added to that aversion towards himself.

His parents had filled him with reproaches. 

The whole family history had reemerged violently. Years of secrets, of lies, of dissimulation. His mother, above all, had looked at him as if he were the monster. Something irreparable had broken, at that moment, between them two. She was no longer the bright, self-assured woman she had always been. She was just a mother that her eldest son had just destroyed. Returning there with their parents, at their request, preparing their future visits and those of Sherlock had been a horror and an insufficient redemption.

_"My responsibility."_

Five minutes. 

He had given her only five minutes. 

Five minutes without monitoring, without supervision. And Eurus had planned, prepared, and programmed everything. Of course, she had used Moriarty. It was not even a revenge against his brothers. It was an expression of his madness and his ineffable inner solitude. It had undermined the security of England's best guarded prison. He had destroyed the most extreme measures of the Ministry of the Interior. However, locked up, in secret, she had managed to manipulate the outside world, deceiving the best prepared services in the country. 

She had ridiculed him.

_"My choice."_

Mycroft still had the sensation of breathing the pungent smell that came from the Sherrinford director. A smell of fear and, ultimately, death. He could not help remembering how the index finger on his brother's right hand lightly pressed on the trigger of the weapon he was holding against his throat, prepared to squeeze. The gun barrel pressed hard in the flesh that had already sunk, ready to receive the deadly bullet. 

Sherlock's wrist had trembled under the violent stress.

 Almost invisible, but nonetheless present, drops of sweat drenched his forehead. All that could be heard in the room was John's crazed breathing.

_"My mistake."_

On the sidewalk, Greg had stared at him, looked for his eyes. 

The blow against his temple had done him a lot of damage. He was doubled in pain, his eyes, usually so bright, clouded by the brutal attack. And Mycroft had finished the job that the punches could not. 

Rude, unclean words. 

He could remember himself coldly saying words like "your ass in my bed", "sleeping together", "pathetic and insignificant Yard police". And Greg who, with every insult, paled even more... His lips trembled under the combined shock of physical pain and pain caused by this torrent of atrocious words. 

The man that he loved. Injured. Beaten. Devastated.

_"My fault."_

Little by little, Mycroft looked away from the blood that stained the immaculate pottery. Finally, he looked at himself. The mirror reflected the image of a man he did not recognize. 

The feeling of omnipotence that had hitherto shaped his aristocratic stance, his perfect diction, the often-condescending folds of his lips, had vanished. The powerful man he had always been, building alliances one day, the next day ruining invulnerable organizations, creating and destroying countless worlds with the power of his words and intelligence, had disappeared. For a long time, international finance and politics had been his daily playground. 

Mycroft Holmes, as he liked to say with a barely concealed irony, occupied a minor position in the British government. 

This had not been achieved without having to reach some disagreeable agreements, of course. 

_Sometimes I had to close my eyes._

And although it had been made more difficult to bear because things had turned out to be serious with Greg, control, power -  they had a price. 

_I had always known._

However, he had not anticipated was that when the _Holmes v. Holmes_ reached the front pages of the press and ruined his career, the price to pay would be much greater than the unfortunate, but not unbearable, agreements on which he had closed his eyes until then. 

_Greg ..._

A wave of nausea shook him as he watched his reflection in the mirror. 

He was pale. The blue circles betrayed his lack of sleep, and even more, his inner collapse. Suddenly dazed, he wondered how he could have been considered desirable. That his power made him desirable he understood, without a doubt. 

_And if I lost that...._

A blurred image overlapped the marked face he was looking at in front of him. It was Greg's face.

Greg tense and visibly angry he had left the Yard to pick him up, with his motorbike, from the back of a ministerial building. A building where Mycroft had been locked-up since the night before thwarting a distant political crisis that damaged the interests and image of the Kingdom. Without saying a word, with a long sigh, the police officer had handed him the helmet.

"Come on, let's go home," Greg said, his tone making it clear he would not accept a refusal. 

Mycroft had been able to read the policeman's expression, and he understood that they had decided, in exchange for information, to release the pimp who had spoken to him a few days before.  He had felt that this decision, probably coming from above, repelled Greg.

On the back of the Harley, leaning on Greg’s thick jacket, Mycroft felt the tense muscles of the detective’s back. The smell of vetiver had given way to the smell of tobacco. Greg breathed heavily and drove nervously as he zig-zagged, down the quay, along the Thames. Mycroft, already used to it, had pressed closer to him and felt that Greg's heart was beating much too quickly and with too much force. In a gesture that to calm down, Mycroft slid his right hand into the half-open neckline, finding the bare skin under Greg’s shirt.

It was then, he had felt a crazy desire, almost new and terrifying, to be borne in him. 

No doubt, he had thought about Greg often, long before considering the possibility of having something with him.  
Of course, from his first gestures of love, his first kisses, he thought about going further. Throughout his various relationships, he had never felt such closeness with anyone. This had led him to express, the need to take a little time, take things slowly. Also, the fear of not pleasing Greg was present. 

Without really knowing why-the speed, the warm skin under his fingers, the feeling of having to comfort his partner, that need and fear were fading as they rode.

  
When they arrived, the two men undid their helmets. Mycroft had tried to turn Greg's face towards him, with a gentle caress on his chin and, obviously, he had said to himself, like every afternoon when he met up with Greg: "that beard, however ...."  

But that night, the policeman had turned his head, breathing heavily. There was a vulnerability in his brown eyes that he did not want to show. 

"Please do not ask me anything," Greg said, in an uncertain voice. Mycroft then took his hand and guided him to the front porch. Once the door was closed, everything was very fast. Mycroft had pushed him against the wall. 

In Greg’s ear, he had whispered, "Do not tell me anything, let me help you." 

And Greg, abandoning himself, had let him do it. He had thrown his head back. 

Mycroft had put his lips on Greg’s neck, where the vein throbbed, and at the same time he had placed his right hand in the hollow of Greg’s back, discarding the shirt and slowly caressing the exquisite softness of the naked skin. His left hand caressed his neck, stiff with tension, his fingers coming and going with a reassuring firmness. 

Greg's breathing was still heavy, but little by little Mycroft had felt the officer relax his muscles. His kiss had become more insistent, going up the neck to the parted lips. He had taken possession of his mouth, while continuing to stroke the lower part of his back, his hand slowly descended to the desired protrusion. And Greg was letting him do it. He had just moved his belly forward, pressed against his lover who was already against him, hard and hot.

Then Mycroft, delicately, had forced Greg's lips to open wider, his tongue exploring the edge of his mouth, caressing all the intimacy that was offered.

His right hand had stopped far below, at the point of the commissure. His thumb, just above, was slowly brushing against silky skin. Under the urgency of the kiss, Greg closed his eyes, and Mycroft, wishing less his own satisfaction than the pleasure of his lover, felt him surrender under that intimate and irresistible caress. And he had felt immensely satisfied when, right after, he pulled his mouth away from Greg's. 

The latter opened his eyes, whose brown color had darkened with desire, and looked into his. He was no longer the tense policeman wrapped in Mycroft’s embrace before. It was Greg, almost childish in his extreme confidence. His loyal and charming Lestrade, with his London accent a little dragged and adorable. 

“I love you, Myc.” Greg had whispered while catching his breath.

_Me too, my love, if you knew how much I love you…_

But the words, that night, had not left his lips. Instead, Mycroft had pulled him even closer to him. 

Greg had repeated once more, a little louder, 

"I love you, Myc."

It was this man whom, a few days before, Mycroft had called _insignificant Yard police_. 

He had left, without a single gesture, the agents of MI5 attacking him and spitting words that, today, made him want to vomit himself. 

A violent nausea seized him when he found his reflection in the mirror, but there was no other solution.

_My decision._

Intolerable. Inconceivable. 

Mycroft drank three more sips of vodka. 

Sleep. Leave. Forget...

He decided to respond, wrote a message and sent it.

And now…?

Immersed in those intimate thoughts that had not even been raised until now, with his eyes fixed on the message sent, Mycroft did not hear the bathroom door open, next to his private office. In his reflection, he could only see a pile of ashes. From far away, he sensed a quick step, but he barely cared.

With a sharp look, Sherlock took note of what he saw. 

He watched the trembling hand and the cloudy eyes of his brother, the open bottle, the scarlet blood that contrasted with the white ceramic, the message and its recipient on the screen.

He came up with a quick step, and putting his hand firmly on Mycroft's shoulder, said in a tone of voice that showed concern hidden under sarcasm:

“Breaking up by text message? What a lack of class, Brother Mine!”

* * *

Very early that morning, Greg quietly left the apartment on Baker Street. It was where, more or less, he had settled, and ran to his office. He had desperately wanted to return to Scotland Yard, where he left Baker Street every day at dawn and to where he only returned late at night. 

He had not justified why he preferred John and Sherlock's couch to his own apartment. He had mumbled words like "nightmares ... newspapers ... scandal ... disappeared". 

Nightmares .....

It was something Greg knew John understood perfectly well. 

Sherlock, who had only been passing like gusts of wind all week, had not said anything. 

_At least he stopped playing the violin after two o'clock in the morning when I am there._

So, Greg had taken possession of the sofa. He had escaped the journalists' gaze, but he was no less affected by the storm. Every day he had more problems with what he felt, almost physically inside him, like the emotional stab wounds in Mycroft's back. 

Who were these people to think that they had done wrong before impossible options, invoking thus the summary verdict of the hungry crowd of spectacle? How can we expect a fair trial, in any case, between those who wanted to bury the case, those who wanted to earn money or fame with him and those who suffered it? 

But that was not the hardest part. 

Greg might have understood his lover's motivations to want him to believe that his story was over, but sometimes he could not help but doubt him. Why did not Mycroft want to see it? 

_He did not even know where I was._

Greg had learned it from Alicia Smallwood.

"Inspector Lestrade, our services are not those of the last totalitarian principality on the planet. Mr. Holmes is still under surveillance, but he is free to move and can get in touch with whomever he wants .... "

_Then why are you not answering any of your calls or messages?_

In the background, Greg was very worried. It was he who had seen Mycroft's empty eyes refusing to look at him. It was he who had heard the extremely condescending tone. He was the one who felt each one of his contemptuous and hateful words passing through him like stabs. 

Was it possible that Sherlock had misinterpreted his brother's attitude? What if the detective was wrong? What if this comedy was not a comedy? 

The idea had occurred to him, perhaps even more unbearable, that Mycroft had deliberately distanced him, that he did not trust him enough to face the ordeal together. A pretended choice of loneliness ...

"You do not know how far I will go for you ..."

The confusion in him made him struggle between anger and fear. His hands trembled uncontrollably.

_I need a cigarette._

He would have to immerse himself in the work with a lot of effort. And fast.

 _"The boss is really having a bad time,"_ Sally thought when she arrived at the office a little later, and saw him unshaven, tired, with frizzy hair, and definitely devoid of his usual vetiver smell. _"Yes, a very bad time..."_

She had not even asked him. 

Immediately she brought him a cup of hot coffee and a pack of cigarettes. 

The policeman had ignored the first and launched into the second.

“Are you okay, boss?” she asked after a few minutes. 

_Of course not, it was not good. Why did Dr. Watson let him come back?_

"What do we have this morning, Sally?" Greg muttered without answering the question, carefully avoiding the woman's eyes.

"Not much, Inspector, everything's quiet," said Sally, entering the game.

"We will not make things worse ..."

“The documents of the armed assault in a pub near Earl's Court, but no injuries. And before, we had a nice crack session in Waterloo, " she added in the vain hope of easing some of the tension in his supervisor's face.

She had seen him smoke cigarettes before. His right hand trembled slightly. His eyes were half closed and he threw back his head. 

Once he smoked the first cigarette, he lit another. 

And one more.

“Coffee now, boss?”

Greg's phone rang. It was John, who, much to the surprise of the police officer, had news of Mycroft. 

“Where is he? Is he okay?” Greg had asked in a tense voice with ragged breath.

“I did not see him, he asked Sherlock to go and Sherlock ... well, I messed him up a bit ... In short, Mycroft has been in his Diogenes Club since his release. He did not want to see anyone, except the people closely related to the case… His parents, above all. A few days ago, with Sherlock. It was expected, the family reunion...” John stated hesitantly.

“And ... how did it go with their parents?” Greg asked quietly.

John hesitated, and then continued, “I cannot tell you that it went well, no.”

Greg shuddered. “I knew that Mycroft's relationship with his parents was not very good.”

Mycroft had never talked openly with him, but Greg suspected that the Holmes had placed many responsibilities to their eldest son in childhood, adolescence or adulthood, under difficult circumstances.

 _“Circumstances that had not been resolved.”_  Greg thought bitterly. 

John had continued “…And... they wanted to go...there... well, you know... see their daughter. Mycroft had to go with them, for the accreditations, so that Sherlock could go too after....”

The words had thrown an immediate and painful flash of anger through Greg's chest.

“But ... Mycroft would have to go there anyway... God... What about you? Are you going to let Sherlock go back?"

Greg made this remark in a very low voice, unable to conceive Mycroft's return to that nightmarish place. And what did John mean by "I cannot say everything went well"?

_My love, oh ... my love ..._

“Greg, you have to understand some things! This is their daughter! His sister! And you have to stop blinding yourself, there is blood on your hands, it is not entirely...”

"I'm going!" Greg had cut off the doctor's speech, with a fury John had been able to feel. 

Sally had seen Greg turn pale during the conversation. He had barely got up after hanging up, before he grabbed one of the leather jackets he still had in the office, and the keys to his motorcycle.

In an instant, the policeman had disappeared. Two minutes later, Sally heard the scream of the Harley's engine.

* * *

When Greg reached Baker Street, his agitated state had alarmed the doctor, who prayed that Sherlock, who had been away since the night before, would not appear again too soon. Greg kept coming and going through the living room, looking at his phone and typing frantically. His abdomen, where he had been hit, obviously still caused him a lot of pain. In the end, John had told him to lie down and recover. He had not slept, giving him a mild sedative again.

Once the policeman's breathing had calmed down, once he was sure he was asleep, John heaved a long sigh. When he heard Sherlock arrive, he stepped forward on the landing and put a finger to his lips. The detective had begun to walk silently through the living room, but in the middle of the walk, he stopped, and his bright eyes had not stopped moving between the sleepy Greg and the newspapers lying on the floor. He had started to murmur:

"Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot..."

“Sherlock…” John asked, “…who are you talking about?

Sherlock did not answer immediately. 

With his two index fingers stuck to his chin, he looked from afar at a photo on the cover of a tabloid. 

Suddenly he left his immobility and went to the kitchen table where he placed a fragment of the explosive he had found a few days earlier in the chair on a piece of glass. John had also done a good job of trying to track these explosives over the past week, but he had not found anything conclusive.

The doctor then saw the detective's lips rounded in an "o" of satisfaction.

“Have you found something?”

John approached his friend and put his hand on his forearm. Sherlock was sitting, leaning toward the sheet, very attentive to the unpleasant smell still emanating from the fragment. For once, John was watching him from above, but all he saw was Sherlock's messy dark hair strewn all over his neck. The doctor looked at the fragment vaguely, his gaze fixed mainly on the detective. 

Nothing made sense. 

Without realizing it, and since it was the only thing that mattered to him at that moment, in the agitation they were going through, he had put his lips in the dark curls that danced before his eyes. An infinite softness caressed his lips. 

Sherlock's neck was hot, a little wet, _like a child who had run too long_  John had thought.

He could feel the detective lowering his head even more.  _Did he offer himself to that delicate touch?_  

Sherrinford's events seemed to have blown away the invisible barrier that the two men, for reasons that they themselves probably did not understand, had struggled to build among themselves. Death had come too close this time. 

Sherlock's countdown had not taken his life, but seemed to have given life to a new form of relationship, barely emerging, but fully accepted.

“What an idiot” continued Sherlock. “I have to go, and fast!”

John could not really tell whether Sherlock had felt the light and tender kiss.

Taking his Belstaff at full speed and knotting his scarf in an arrogant gesture - _Sherlock will always be Sherlock_ , John could not help but think with a half-smile - the detective had already thrown himself down the stairs. It was no surprise for the doctor to hear, as if by magic, a taxi stopping instantly in front of the door. And he whispered to himself, with a slight sigh.

"It's not easy for me, you know ..."

There was a whole world of uncertainties and desire mixed in that simple affirmation, at last an admission of the love that he felt. 

He had looked at Greg, still in his restless sleep. John covered him again with the blanket that the policeman kept removing and then put some order in the living room. 

He took Greg’s pulse and having found it calmer, decided to go out to do some shopping for lunch at noon, whose time was approaching. However, he took the precaution of leaving a note for his friend.

When John returned, he pushed open the door, leaving the bags right at the entrance and took a few steps, trying not to make noise so as not to wake Greg up. 

The first thing he saw was a broken glass and water on the floor.

The sofa was empty.

* * *

 

“Breaking up by text message...What a lack of class...and with a friend of mine!” repeated Sherlock, removing the phone and bottle from his brother's hands, and taking him to a chair.

None of it generated a reaction from Mycroft.

Sherlock had never felt comfortable in his brother's office at the Diogenes Club. However, he had accepted the idea that Mycroft felt less vulnerable there, and had not tried to dissuade him from leaving the premises. It was also he who organized that meeting there, so that Mycroft would not imagine that it would become a nightmare for him as it was with his parents. It was true that he had his share of responsibility in the reluctance of Mycroft to return home, however, he did not see how this confined blue-gray atmosphere, barely attenuated by the false illusions created by the games of mirrors, could provide comfort. Especially taking into account that the shelves were now replete with several publications of the last days.

“You've chosen a strange way to shave today. You fired your barber? Seriously, Mycroft Holmes, you've dropped a level. Shaving yourself, how degrading!”

While throwing the usual barbs at his brother, he watched him closely, pushed him away from the mirror and took him to the other room. 

Mycroft said nothing, did not even seem aware of his brother's presence. 

With a sudden click on the remote, Sherlock turned off the screen of a TV that had probably been on for hours. The image of the channel 'Sky News' showed the word Sherrinford before it turned dark and disappeared.

“Are you sure you have to put up with this every day? _A Guantanamo in our green meadows._ Mycroft? Seriously? Come, sit here. I'll bring something to clean this. Meanwhile, put your finger on that cut.”

Sherlock took his brother's still hand and made him press his index finger against the cut. Rummaging in the adjoining bathroom, he questioned Mycroft, wanting him to come out of his silence.

“But where are things stored here? Do not you even have an antiseptic?”

Mycroft continued without reacting. His brother added in a low voice, leaving the sarcastic tone:

“We have to talk, and you know it.”

Sherlock had started investigating immediately after Alicia's visit and discovered that one of Sherrinford's big shots, supposedly friends with his brother for a long time, had received small gifts in exchange for information. He had been interrogated, but not arrested. The owner of the newspaper that had made the gifts had been very prudent, and Sherlock had only been able to obtain a vague commitment that they would soon stop publishing about the case. The detective embarked on a summary of his conclusions, both to keep the formalities and to get Mycroft out of his silence.

“I think everything was very simple... Your dear Alicia is not a newbie... She did not need to come to see me, she could have found what she found alone. And it was very late when he came to ask me for help. I have the impression that he only wanted to cover his back by asking me to investigate this, to keep up appearances. Even so, I found that it lacked scope... Magnussen could have given him some advice. Boring. He was only interested in money... Small journalists in this case were sometimes more interesting. There were some who wanted to make a name for themselves, others just to make a living. Aand not everyone was there to take the scoop. Some asked good questions, Mycroft, certain that you would be able to control everything, even the most absolute evil...”

The alarms went off in Sherlock’s mind when he realized that he was not receiving any reaction from his brother.

Mycroft, who loved to complain about his colleagues and could not resist the temptation to prove his superiority to the detective, elucidating the gray areas of the detective’s investigations was silent.

Sherlock decided he had to get to the bottom of the matter.

“I'll keep looking. You'll make a complete file about that "friend" of yours. That kind of bribes can be only part of the problem, a smoke screen ...”

Sherlock hesitated a moment and then launched himself.

“And on the other hand, as for... "

Contemplating the hermetic face of his brother, he noticed a small tremor in his lower lip.

“You do not believe a single word of the horrible things you said to Lestrade, right? And you overwhelmed your poor assistant with reproaches, you blamed her, and you still blame her, for having contacted him when you came back from Sherrinford ... I can feel the tension between her and you, which has not happened since, shall we say ... the last ice age? So why did you do it? Give me a good reason why John and I should support your beloved on our couch each night, wondering why you do not even want to talk to him, and above all, why, because of this, we must suffer the increase of NSYs already notorious incompetence like...”

Picking on Mycroft’s beloved - that did it – like Sherlock new it would.

“Sherlock! Come on, enough!” Mycroft interrupted his brother to take control of the conversation. “It's not enough for you to have revealed the truth, do you want to let him believe that he can have a future with me? We were lucky this time to keep him out of reach of those stupid pen pushers, and that's good. Getting back in touch with him would mean throwing him back into the lion's den! No way, do you hear me? In no way will anyone who is not me suffer any consequences caused by this unpleasant situation!”

“The media campaign will stop ... You will face it together, then...”  answered Sherlock with the hope of calming Mycroft, sensing his growing anguish.

“You do not understand it” Mycroft's voice trembled more, “Even assuming that it stops quickly, with the impact it has had, with the state of public opinion on terrorism cases and what people have been able to assimilate, I will not be able to avoid a trial... or a long sentence! What will I have to offer? He... who deserves ... to be given the whole world ... "

In an exasperated tone, Sherlock spoke again “This office is the last place in the world where I thought I would hear such nonsense again. On second thought, I am not sure that the two of you should be allowed to speak again among yourselves. It is already... painful separately ... it would be doubly painful! And now, Mycroft, you know very well that _Greg_ ” Sherlock deliberately emphasized the first name, “wants absolutely nothing to do with power, the world or its treasures or whatever..."

Mycroft, broken, interrupted him “I know, yes ... do not worry, it's not very hard to tell the difference with the interested people that have been with me for years. But being the companion of someone designated as guilty, soon to be imprisoned...”

“It is not a life for him. I… I will not let him be trapped into that life." Mycroft's voice broke with those last words, and he leaned on his desk. 

Sherlock noted his brother's condition and realized the problem.

“Wait a minute. Stay there, you're white as a sheet. I'll see if I can find something else you can drink other than... _that_.” he said as he gestured towards the vodka bottle. 

But Mycroft no longer looked at him, he was looking through the window at something that only he could see.

A few minutes later, while Sherlock walked back to Mycroft’s office with a bottle of water in hand, he felt his phone vibrate. He stopped halfway to read it.

“Is Greg with you? – JW”

Sherlock continued up the stairs and arrived in front of his brother's office. He would have sworn he had closed the door behind him and yet the door was wide open ... He did not even have to check the room to snarl a curse.

The detective typed very fast on his screen.

"See you in Diogenes, My Brother has escaped."

In fact, and although the facts seemed to indicate otherwise, the surveillance services probably had an eye on Mycroft, placed on probation, but Sherlock could not help but worry.

He wrote a second message.

"And for the love of God, take a taxi. SH"

* * *

  
At the end of the morning, Greg had quickly woken from his forced rest in the empty, silent apartment. His eyes landed on the note left by John.

"I've gone shopping, I'll be back soon. Get some rest."

Sherlock was not there either. Greg had been furious with the detective for hiding his contacts with Mycroft during the week. Probably due to the combined effect of fatigue and sedation, the feeling disappeared, but his head was still spinning a bit. 

He touched his cheekbone with the tips of his fingers, where John had made the stitches, a few days before, and then his hand fell on his belly. The MI5 agent had done a good job, and Greg could not help but smile.

Wobbling on his legs, Greg went to the kitchen. His mouth was very dry. He poured himself a large glass of water and drank it in one gulp, then another, without his slight dizziness disappearing. 

_How long has it been since I’ve eaten anything? But I really was not hungry._

A thin smile formed on his lips when he felt his rough beard. He should shave.

"Greg, for God's sake, go shave ..."

The memory of the familiar words struck him in the plexus like a blow even more violent than the one he received in reality. The images of the entire Exeter scene immediately resurfaced. 

Of course, Sherlock had reassured him since then. More or less. 

A desperate attempt at manipulation, the detective had said. It was true. It seemed that Mycroft used the best weapon he had, his always sharp and precise words, to keep Greg away, to not drag him into the personal abyss that had opened before him and could reduce it to nothing. That was the feeling that Lady Smallwood conveyed when she showed them the headlines of the newspapers that were going to publish the story. 

But deep down, Greg had only half believed it.

That was when his cell phone vibrated. He thought he saw the room spinning around him as he read the message.

12 Noon “It's over. MH”

Without thinking, Greg ran out into the street and started his motorbike, with barely time to tighten his helmet.

He was driving fast. 

The docks of the Thames were full of cars. 

It had started to rain. Intermittent. 

The right lane. Intermittent. 

On the left. More to the left. 

When he received the message, Greg had not even thought about it. All I wanted right now was to go see Mycroft, try to understand him, talk to him. He also wanted, more than anything, to hit him, to hurt him, to love him, and for all this to stop. 

Greg could feel the tears soaking his helmet, he was stronger than this. 

In a show of lucidity, he crossed the docks to the right again, turned to the river and stopped the motorcycle in what seemed to him a kind of deserted parking lot. He took hesitant steps toward the Thames, more gray than usual from the clouds that darkened the sky.  A strong wind swirled the waters. 

Tears burned his damaged cheek. 

The nicotine from the cigarettes he had smoked at Scotland Yard pierced his body and his thoughts swirled. 

_How did we get to this?_

A few days ago, and today. Everything was just a house in ruins. 

In the end, whatever the reason, whether to protect him, as Sherlock said, or to reject him, the result was the same.

A feeling of total abandonment invaded Greg, to the point that everything began to seem unreal to him. Had he dreamed of their first motorcycle ride and their first hugs? Had he given his love to what had ultimately been a game for Mycroft?

"It's over. MH."

_It's not possible._

Greg moved a little closer to the water. His reflection scared him. His eyes were swollen with tears and weariness. The three stitches were swollen and looked like three grotesque red spots on his skin. His hair, already crushed by the helmet, was soaked with rain. Wind gusts blew against his leather jacket. 

Could it be that one day he, the insignificant Yard cop, could have really attracted the brilliant Mycroft Holmes? And yet, Greg could not help his thoughts returning to a distant sunrise, when he saw Mycroft approaching him on the sidewalk in front of the Yard, taking his hands, and then putting his lips on Greg’s. He had asked Mycroft the day before, knowing that the first part of the day was free for both to meet him at Scotland Yard at the end of his night shift.

"We will return in time for your conference at 3:00 p.m., do not worry ..."

The beginning of the trip had passed without problems, but when leaving London, when being let go by the speed and the embrace of his passenger, he heard a noise in the disturbing engine. His intuition about the possibility of a serious breakdown had turned out to be correct and he only had time to park in a deserted, sinister area at night with quiet little houses, large shopping malls with lighted but frozen windows and endless warehouses.

"Oh, my God, I thought about taking you to the sea to see the sun come up! And there is nowhere to buy even a coffee! ..."

Mycroft, without paying attention, began to speak “Dartford, peripheral district, large Nigerian community, Boko Haram tried to infiltrate among them, but it did not work, the locals were not really receptive to radical propaganda...”

“So, you and your brother never stop. How the hell do you know that? And what does that have to do with ...?” Greg turned to him.

“I do not deduce it at all ... a surveillance operation for these Islamist agents was ordered here a few weeks ago, and our services have not yet finished the lease of the apartment that was used as a safe house. It's a few streets away. So, if you want a coffee... We can call to pick up your bike and drink it there."

To his great relief, Greg had the distinct impression that Mycroft was not angry to see that control of the situation fell on him. The house in question was apparently not different from the rest of the neighborhood, but it concealed a numeric code lock. A few comings and goings of Mycroft's fingers on the screen of his mobile phone opened the door for them. Everything was still there to imitate the daily life of a normal family. In fact, they had made coffee, their hands joined as they each sipped a cup. 

Then Mycroft took Greg's mug. 

\-------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------

He had started a long kiss, before he slid a few simple words in Greg’s ear, while he accentuated them with his caresses.

“I wish you...”

"Oh...me too, if you knew how much... I think my shy Mycroft is gone... It was amazing the other day, in the lobby, in your house, and you want us to continue, so ..."

"Mine... At last ..."

These thoughts, as well as the soft voice that sounded even more serious as a result of desire, had abolished Greg's temptation to suggest that they wait until they returned to one of their homes. 

Little by little, he discovered Mycroft’s naked and sensitive skin under impatient exploration.  They had lain on the sofa in the living room. With softer and more intense gestures than those given at Mycroft's house, carried by the words exhaled by the other.

"You're magnificent”

“Oh, your hands, how they warm me, it's incredible”

“Tell me if you like what I do... "

Greg had rediscovered these impressive sensations, largely forgotten with his ex-wife. Little had resumed after his divorce in the brief caresses with some passing lovers. Reimagined in the moments when Greg and Mycroft had left their desire in the state of promise. 

The innumerable kisses, hot from the coffee, had turned him on quickly. Accompanied by his hands, they had descended along him, more and more insistent and ardent, in the hollow of his neck, on his shoulders, lower to his hips. 

A questioning look, steeped in desire, a sign of approval, and Greg felt sucked into his lover's mouth, infinitely pampered under his tongue and his devout lips.

“Mycroft” He gasped after burning minutes “Okay ... I will not last much longer”

“The let go…”

In a few seconds, Greg had lost the sense of reality. 

After a while, he regained consciousness of his partner's soft skin, panting and making regular movements against him.

“Wait...”

Greg had slipped his hand between them and let Mycroft come as he kissed him. A sigh mixed with a heartrending moan, then the sensation of a sweet warmth in his fingers, a breathless breath interspersed with words of gratitude, had not been slow to follow him, making his heart jump. 

Tired from the last few days, they had fallen asleep in each other's arms. When he woke up, he had been shocked to realize that Mycroft was watching him. Mycroft was attracted to him, and very soon Greg felt how much Mycroft still wanted him.

It was with this certainty that Greg got carried away. 

But today, all that had disappeared, dragged by the Sherrinford debacle. B that situation that threatened to destroy them both. By the bad wind that was blowing that afternoon in the Thames. 

Greg leaned, with a kind of nausea, over the waves. 

The black flow could swallow in an instant the despair that Greg felt there, alone, by the river. He read the message again.

"It's over. MH."

_No, not that._

He picked up his motorcycle again, scared to death. But he knew where to go.

* * *

John was immediately on guard when he saw Sherlock in the empty office, he looked uneasy.

"But, when will these two learn to get along?"

The doctor approached the detective cautiously. 

He knew that when Mycroft was played, Sherlock, who defended his brother like a good devil, was extremely protective.

“Sherlock, explain yourself” said John.

With a weak voice, the detective started talking at full speed:

“He told me that he does not want " _nobody but me to suffer for this unpleasant situation_ "! My brother's euphemisms, I cannot stand him! And when he says "nobody", you suspect he is talking about a certain person that is neither you nor me ... And he had been drinking, John, a lot, and maybe also...”

He stopped and pointed to the box of pills that had been left there.

“Fuck...” John muttered under his breath.

The doctor approached the detective in an attempt to soothe him. But Sherlock, furious and annoyed, continued.

“Do you think Mycroft is the only one who cares about his brother? Do you think he's the only one who needs a list? "

At the memory, John paled and a shudder of frustration passed through him. 

_The excesses of the Holmes brothers could take them all to hell. One had already been there. The other was about to go._

As if reading his that’s Sherlock added, with a voice full of cold anger “He's gone to hell, and he's gone alone. John, you know, like me.”

The doctor, feeling like his friend lost his balance in his agitation, approached him and whispered in a voice that wanted to be as reassuring as possible.

“Let's find him, Sherlock, let's find him... I guess you've already contacted the people in charge of watching him...”

-They do not know anything. They have an eye on all the places they could go, but...” Sherlock let the rest go unsaid.

John tried not to show anything, but the idea of a Mycroft determined to end everything and without anyone being able to protect him nearly froze him with fear. 

He barely managed to pull his cell phone out of his pocket.

13h30. "Mycroft, where are you? Are you okay? Please call me. No nonsense, okay? JW." 

* * *

Mycroft got into the darkest corner of the car. 

_To his house in Belgravia? Unthinkable. The ministry? Impossible._

His phone was still vibrating. He turned it off, he needed silence. 

_I need to be alone. I need sleep._

A bad taste had invaded his mouth. The pills, maybe. The words echoed in him…

"I like your lips so much and their bergamot smell ..."

Mycroft closed his eyes, full of pain. 

He brought the bottle of vodka to his mouth again. 

Things were pretty clear, in general. A place, only one, seemed appropriate. 

He indicated that they went east and gave the taxi driver an address. The trip was going to take some time. 

He would have to endure for a long time the almost sensorial idea of the blood that had flowed through him, the unthinkable redemption, the damage he was still going to do. 

Finally, he felt that the car was parking. 

He left with the bottle and the briefcase in his hand. He handed the ticket to the driver, who did not care about the passenger, who was staggering away.

Mycroft was not surprised by the tranquility of the area or the lack of cars parked in front of the houses. In broad daylight, everyone had gone to work in central London. 

That's why he quickly saw the motorbike, parked in front of the house.

And then, a few steps away, with his helmet in his hand, looking more determined than ever…

Gregory Lestrade.


	4. Twenty-Four Hours

When he had finally fallen asleep, Sherlock had kicked off the sheets. He was lying on his side, his cheek resting on both his hands. His lips still bore the mark of the violent blow he had received a little earlier. His clothes were lying in piles near the bed. He was breathing softly.

_Christ, how can he sleep, like that, in such a cool room?_

The past twenty-four hours had been particularly trying. John felt a wave of exhaustion seize him. He carefully placed the cup of tea he sipped on the night stand and leaned toward Sherlock. He half-smiled to himself thinking Sherlock pretended at sleeping. Still, John could not help but lightly place his hand on the detective's forehead, just in case. He lightly touched the hollow of Sherlock’s neck to check the detective’s pulse.

_Of course, he’s fine._

John pulled the sheet to Sherlock's shoulders and sat next to him on the bed. John leaned on the pillow against the headboard, raised his knees to his chest and let his thoughts drag through the turmoil that had engulfed them every day since the events in Sherrinford.

The tabloids had gone wild, more than usual, as the news broke. The trial of the century was on the horizon. One that would shine light on layers of government that usually remained in the shadows, and the press was salivating like dogs over it. 

The case of _Holmes vs Holmes_ was on everyone's lips. 

And for once it was not Sherlock who was in the spotlight. This time the spotlight was on the older Holmes brother, abruptly pulled from the hidden dark places where he used to work. The enigmatic, powerful Mycroft Holmes was thrown into the clutches of a sensationalist crowd that screamed scandal. 

A trial was inevitable. 

A head had to roll.

John felt, given the circumstances, it was not surprising that Mycroft had sunk so low.  What Sherlock had told him about the alcohol and all the rest, the day before, was almost text book predictable. 

Never had John seen Sherlock as distraught as when John found him in Diogenes. 

The worst moments they had lived through with Moriarty was nothing compared to anguish that had gripped Sherlock when he saw how his brother was on the edge of an abyss from which it seemed he did not want to return.  What happened after Mycroft's disappearance from the club was testimony to Sherlock's immense concern for his brother.

John pulled up the sheet that had slipped from the detective's shoulders, again. His breathing had become deeper as he shivered in his sleep.

_Sleep, Sherlock._

The detective was not the only one to suffer the violence of the storm unleashed by events. John could not help but think of Greg, who, in another way, was also paying a heavy price. The doctor saw the policeman again when Sally had brought him back from Exeter. He seemed so lost, so desperate. 

The detective inspector’s words still echoed in John.

_“It is true? For you Holmes, I will never be more than a pathetic and insignificant Yard cop?"”_

Of course, by then, John understood what was really going on. He offered Lestrade their sofa. It was days later when Lestrade’s nightmares had begun. It was expected.

Naturally, it had been him, the old friend that Sally had immediately contacted yesterday, when Greg had taken off like a bat out of hell from NSY.

_Is the boss is with you? He took his bike. I’m worried. -Sally_

John had shown the message to Sherlock, who, since his brother had disappeared, kept pacing frantic circles.

"Obviously, He’s going to meet him, but where? And why?” whispered the detective, more nervous than ever. 

“I need...I need to think…" he said before he closed himself off in a disturbing silence.

And that's how the endless quest that had just brought them back to Baker Street began a little earlier.

John leaned back more on the bed, however, he was unable to sleep the tension of the few last hours had been so high. Usually, it was he who gave in to sleep while Sherlock kept churning data over and over again in his mind until it made sense, today the roles were reversed. The true relationship between Sherlock and his brother was finally exposed. The characteristic sarcasm, mockery and mutual exasperation had dissipated, giving way to the reality of a bond John had glimpsed in Sherrinford when, against all odds, Mycroft had offered his life against John’s. It was a convincing performance. He almost would have succeeded if Sherlock had not been... Sherlock and deduced the truth of everything. 

Today, Mycroft was at the gates of hell.

Greg was right behind him. 

And of course, Sherlock was not far himself.

With a sigh, John once again covered Sherlock's body with the light sheet that had slipped again as the detective moved in his sleep. The doctor laid down fully and closed his eyes, careful not to wake his friend. In an attempt to calm Sherlock, John slipped a hand into the dark hair and gently stroked the curls as his own worried thoughts continued to overwhelm him. And though he thought the man was fast asleep, Sherlock moved closer to him and heard him whisper.

 "Stop thinking and come hug me. I'm cold."

* * *

  
_21 hours before..._

  
In the end, Gregory Lestrade had no doubts.

He headed for Dartford. He and Mycroft were supposed to meet for dinner together. It was a date they had set a long time ago.

_Maybe Mycroft had not canceled it?_

Fear, anger and, above all, a sense of absolute urgency pushed him to accelerate more than reasonable on the congested roads out of London. The day was overcast and dark as it began to drizzle.  Gradually the traffic became less dense through the deserted suburbs. The Harley chased an exact route. In less than two hours, Greg found himself in front of the house that over time had become their intimate haven. The street was silent and empty at midday when all the inhabitants of the neighborhood had gone to work in central London. When he approached after turning off his motorcycle, he could see that the blinds were closed. The door was locked too. Mycroft was not there.

A feeling of desperation came over Greg. 

_How could my instincts have deceived me so much? That my feelings for Mycroft have blinded me so?_

_Am I really so far gone that I am unable to contemplate even the possibility that Mycroft would not come here for refuge?_

Slowly, Greg walked around to the rear of the house. Everything in the back was closed also.  The drizzle had penetrated everything and dripped from his soaked leather jacket. Determined to believe, against all odds, Greg walked back to the front porch and took out the key Mycroft had given him a few months earlier. He told himself he could not have been that wrong about everything. It was just then that he heard a car as it stop by the house and saw the tall figure that staggered out of the vehicle and headed towards him.

A surge of anger raced through him and brutally overtook everything else.

* * *

  
_21 hours before...…_

  
Sherlock and John jumped into a when they left Diogenes. 

They had spent two hours at the club thinking, going through all the clues, when Sherlock suddenly stopped.

"No, John, no... It's impossible... I cannot think here in these grays and blues... We need to get back to Baker Street." He decreed in a tense voice.

In the taxi, both men had locked themselves in their respective thoughts. 

Sherlock frantically reviewed all the evidence he had in his possession. 

_Data. That is what I need. Data._

He checked the habits of his brother. His relationships. His mansion in Belgravia. His places of rendezvous. His work routines.

Nothing came out of it. 

The detective, at his wit’s end, swore as he sent his fist in the window of the taxi.

John, for his part, had felt it as his mind took him places he had not even known existed. It was not so much objective data that he tried to cross reference with each other as thin threads of familiar sensations. Glances he had caught... Mycroft, his umbrella in his hand, coming out of the Home Office ... Mycroft again, in this sinister building on the edge of London where John first met him... The dark sedan Mycroft never drove...

John felt all these details had to lead to a clue they could work with.

"Sherlock, I..."

John stopped as he saw a message pop up on his mobile.

_Mycroft is with me. He has drunk a lot, but otherwise ok. – G_

A wave of relief passed through the doctor who immediately showed the message to Sherlock. 

"John, ask him where they are. We’re on our way.” the detective breathed, with a look that was both calmer, but still overwhelmed.

“No, we are going to leave them alone, Sherlock. Greg will be attentive. He has good first aid skills and will ask for help if he needs it. There is no way we’re getting in the middle of _that_... Especially right now.” John shook his head at Sherlock as he tapped out a response.

_No. No nonsense, neither of you, promise? – J_

_Promise. Just need to talk. – G_

"How did he know where to find him? I hadn’t figured it out myself, and I still haven’t... We have to find them, John.” Sherlock continued urgently. He was still shell-shocked from a few hours earlier, having found his brother, in such an extreme state of vulnerability. 

"It's not his head that put him on the road, it's his heart ... that should reassure you.” John put a soothing hand on his friend's shoulder. “Greg trusts you, deep down. He believed you when you said that Mycroft did not want to just take advantage of him. I'm not saying it will be one of their best moments, but they need to find each other, to be together…”

“John, I feel that my brother is in danger, and it exceeds the skills of ...” Sherlock cut John off, his eyes more stubborn than ever.

“Oh, no, now you’re exaggerating.” John cut Sherlock off in turn, “I understand you're worried about your brother, but…”

Again, Sherlock did not let him finish his sentence “John, that's not what I mean! Stop being so sentimental, I do not just want to get my brother back or stop him from living his life or something, but…”

“But what? What do you mean?” asked John, who was no longer following his friend's reasoning.

“Look at the facts, John! How did Mycroft manage to leave Diogenes, considering the state that he was in? It is not normal that MI5 surveillance be so lax! So, there are two options: One – it really is a failure, in which case, there are people who deserve a kick in the arse and I will happily be the one to provide it.” Sherlock stated, “Which by the way, would only be fair, considering the state in which they returned Lestrade to us, or…  Or what, John?”

The doctor answered immediately “Or was the surveillance voluntarily let go? But what would it serve? Nothing!”

“It's exactly that! Nothing and no one!” Sherlock resumed his masterly air that John loved so much when Sherlock went into one of his rapid-fire run downs “Mycroft is the one who made all the decisions for Sherrinford! That he disappears without anyone knowing where or how, it does not help anybody. The people who want to quickly and discreetly settle the case? They must discuss it with him. Those who want to continue to sell the case and the prospect of a hypermedia trial? They must be able to expose their target. Those who covet his position? They must be able to ensure that my brother remains under control... So, that's not it either ...”

“But what’s the solution?” asked John, who could not see where the detective was going with this line of thought.

“We have to imagine another way, John! Think again about the smoke screen, what they want us to see, not what we should really be looking at.”

“You think that someone wants to make us believe that the surveillance has slackened when he knows very well where Mycroft is? Why does this person care, what we believe?”

Sherlock resumed with a knowing air “Perhaps the most important thing is not what we believe, but what Mycroft believes. You know my brother." and here Sherlock allowed himself a very slight smile, "He is capable of throwing them off his trail, but with the state that he’s in, I am not sure who is a step ahead! And what they want to do, or get Mycroft to do, if they can get him to believe that he was no longer being watched?”

"Do you think that your brother, if he believes he lost them, thinks he can ... disappear ... one way or another, without anyone noticing?" John asked as he began to understand.

“Exactly that! I see you're starting to know my brother. And that's what they were counting on. That Mycroft disappears, either by leaving, or by putting an end to his life under the pressure of the media campaign…”

"But he did not do either," continued the doctor, who had now grasped what his flatmate was thinking.

“That's why we need to find out where they are... Those who are after him may be trying to speed up the pace!” 

The detective, absorbed in his reasoning, began to speak in rapid fire “John, still try to call Greg back, or send him a message. He will not want to talk to me, he will be angry at me for not telling him that I knew where Mycroft was last week.” the detective continued to mumble, as he suddenly put his hand to his pocket, “Ah! Phone! They missed that and this is what we need now, Alicia Smallwood…”

"She may know where Mycroft is," John sighed, though he did not really believe it.

“It would surprise me that he gave her the address of his secret rendezvous place, but you never know. However, I trust that she knows what surveillance services are doing and whose ass I can kick” Sherlock placed the call.

* * *

 

_21 hours before..._

  
Mycroft, was momentarily petrified at the sight of the motorcycle and then at Greg as he stepped forward. Greg barely took another step and once Mycroft was within reach, grabbed his arm. Unceremoniously, he dragged Mycroft into the house.

"What did you take?" Greg spoke low and in the most neutral tone possible, but his black anger seeped through.

Mycroft's response was a mixture of "careful, please" and some inaudible words. 

Greg almost shouted as he closed the door, "What. Did. You. Take!”

“The bottle ... two tablets ...”

The still lucid part of Greg’s mind allowed him to calm down and assess the possible danger remaining with a few simple gestures. He sent a text to inform John what was happening and then took Mycroft's pulse.

Mycroft seemed to come out of his detachment for a moment and tried to push away from Greg.

“Leave me alone, go away…"

The waves of fear, the doubt and the anger of the last few days roiled together in Greg’s mind and finally exploded. Greg snatched Mycroft’s wrists in his hand, harshly twisted the man’s arms up behind him and pinned Mycroft against a wall. 

"Why do you want me to leave you? Why do you want to leave me? Why did you do that to me? You _hurt_ me! _WHY_?"

A near unstoppable desire to beat the idiot locked in his pride, or God knew what else, seized him.  He added in a soft voice of exasperation, "That's enough now, Mycroft."

Mycroft remained motionless, his tall, long stature wobbled a little against the wall. Greg released one wrist and turned Mycroft’s head around to face him, gave him a light touch on his cheek.

"You're hurting me..." Mycroft groaned against him in anguish.

Mycroft pointed his chin towards Greg and looked him straight in the eyes.

“You know it is necessary.”

On top of all of his other feelings, an immense wave of desire crossed Greg then. It led him to hug Mycroft with all his might. Touching Mycroft again, after the hardships already endured with this man he loved so much, almost made the whole of his own body twitch, hardening not just his privates, but all the muscles that held his lover, still Greg did not relax his grip.

"You're hurting me..."He repeated the words. And then again...

He needed to stop the pain filled pleas falling from his lips.

With his free hand, Greg grabbed Mycroft's jaw, forcing him to lower his lips and open them. From his lips, his tongue, his teeth, Greg took possession of every inch of Mycroft's mouth that he could reach, without concern that hurting him, even making blood flow from his lips and tongue as he nipped at them several times.

Mycroft's mouth opened immediately under Greg’s almost brutal touch.  A groan of both suffering and acceptance rewarded the cop. Their suffering in the days that have passed had to find an atonement, one way or another. 

It was not a game. It was out of the question to be an extra pawn in the dark rules that Mycroft assigned to the world and inflicted on himself. 

Greg had to regain control, by whatever means necessary.

Greg pushed Mycroft further into the room and tripped him onto the couch that had seen their first embrace in this house. He slipped a knee between Mycroft's legs and pinned Mycroft’s hands together over his head in the iron grip that he still held and devoured his throat with feverish kisses. 

Mycroft said nothing, the uncontrollable trembling of his lips reflected the pain and pleasure involved. In the desire that prevailed over everything else, he arched up as close as possible to Greg. 

Everything stirred in him at that moment: this dislike of himself, what he had done to Greg in recent days to protect him, but above all, his fervent need to reacquaint himself with Greg’s warmth, Greg’s skin, Greg’s smell... 

Mycroft tried to free his hands. In vain. 

He realized the powerful and determined embrace, in its own way told him just how much he was wanted, how much he was needed, how much he was loved, by Greg in reciprocation and surrendered himself completely to the sensation of the burning body that now crushed his without mercy.

Greg, with his other hand, had pulled violently at the buttonholes of Mycroft's shirt. There had been a squeak, quickly stifled by the sound of kisses Greg covered Mycroft's bare chest. 

"Mycroft, look at me ...” The policeman raised his head to look at Mycroft, who had closed his eyes and undulated beneath him in the rhythm Greg had set for both. 

“Tell me why, Myc. Tell me why? I still love you, you know ...” he whispered, his breath a burning in his lover’s ear, but Mycroft, his eyes still closed, answered only with a barely contained moan of desire.

Greg rolled his hips against Mycroft, each felt the other’s need.

Mycroft gave a light cry that was as much pleasure as surprise. Greg's gestures then became what they always were, gentle and attentive.  His lips continued to pamper Mycroft's chest, but now with marked tenderness. 

Slowly. Gently. Greg stripped Mycroft and himself and then slid his hand down to the burning intimacy of his lover. He held them together in his hand. His quick caress enveloped both of them in a shared heat. The pleasure seizes them at the same time as Greg, once again, had placed his lips on those of Mycroft and kissed him deeply. Mycroft, his hands finally released from the vise Greg had imposed on them, found his lover’s hips and pulled them to him. 

In a deep of pleasure, they were one.

It took a long while, neither of them feeling either the strength or the desire to move. Greg rested on Mycroft, whose heart was still beating fast against his bare chest. When Greg regained his breath, he straightened and looked at Mycroft. The latter, his eyes half-shuttered with exhaustion, had stared at him, looking downcast, despite the moment of love they had just shared. In Greg, the anger was still there, but now, above all, there was an urgent and absolute need for reassurance. That his being there was not all in vain.

"Say it. Say it…” Greg whispered. Mycroft looked questioningly into the eyes of his lover.

"Tell me it's not over. I want to hear you say it. Now,” Greg pleaded softly.

"I... I'm... sorry, Gregory." whispered Mycroft, his unsteady voice, speaking at last.

Greg stared at him, astonished by the simplicity that Mycroft had never used with him before.

In an exasperated voice mixed with disbelief and pain, he responded, "Sorry? Sorry? That's all you have to say to me? You do not believe you're going to get away with it, do you, Mycroft?

Greg leaned into a silent Mycroft and held him even harder, as his chest convulsed with sobs.

* * *

  
_15 hours before..._

  
Alicia Smallwood had asked Sherlock and John to join them at Thames House in her office. She seemed both worried and somewhat uncomfortable when she spoke.

"Here you are, Mr. Holmes. I wanted to talk to you about David Eldridge, who, you know because you flushed him out as the one who fed your brother to the journalists. It's… delicate.” The official closed her eyes as she paused for a long moment. She seemed to be searching for the right words, “We have been working with Eldridge for a long time. He has many powerful friends, and also henchmen to do the dirty works.” With those words, Alicia Smallwood made a gesture of disapproval, but continued, "He thought him reliable. In recent months, Mycroft had delegated a large number of responsibilities to him. At first I did not really understand why. I did not immediately realize that your brother had started to have, how to say...other priorities.” a thin smile appeared on her face “I would have preferred him to have told me, frankly. Anyway, it seemed like everything was fine..."

"Come now, Lady Smallwood, you were not surprised when I gave you Eldridge’s name.” Sherlock interrupted, “You've been waiting for me to point someone out, as you could not point fingers yourself. Possibly because he has friends who are not yours, but it does not matter... The other day you took care to conceal your visit to my home, but if it were found out, it might be thought that it concerned the Magnussen case, for which you asked me about some time ago.”

“How do you know all this?” Lady Smallwood asked dumbfounded.

“Not important.” Sherlock continued. “All of that was the smoke screen, and we do not really have time. So you also waved a censer in front of David, did not you? It gave me time to investigate and go see him, and you took the opportunity to learn more about him, am I correct? What did you discover? Like me, that in light of his family fortune, money could not be his only motivation? Have you been able to go further?”

“It seems, with the missions entrusted to him by Mycroft, David has seen doors open a little ... doors that now he may want to push all the way too fast…” the official began.

“... And Mycroft did not quite leave him all the keys...”Sherlock continued.

"…That would mean, that he still needs Mycroft!" and John finished.

Alicia sighed and continued “But, will not a moment arrive, if it has not already arrived, in which the student will think that he has overcome the master especially now that the master is…troublesome?"

Sherlock, tensely turned to her, the sudden dread in the detective’s tone, was testimony to the immense threat that loomed over his brother's head.

“You are telling us that a... disappearance... of Mycroft... one way or another ... could right now, solve David's problem? Is that it?"

Lady Smallwood said nothing, but that in itself was the answer.

* * *

  
_14 hours before..._

  
Mycroft was asleep, overcome by both the alcohol and the tension of the last few hours as well as the waves of pleasure Greg had brought him to. The latter slowly freed himself from the body with which he was still intertwined, went to find the comforter that covered one of the beds and returned to cover Mycroft as familiar words resonated within him.

_"Come and hug me, you know I'm always cold afterwards."_

Pushing away the memory that was too painful to deal with, Greg walked to the kitchen and set the kettle on the stove. Tea would be needed for what was to come next. A lot of tea. And also something to eat. He did not even remember how long it had been since he consumed anything solid.

Mycroft, still lying on the sofa, had his eyes open when Greg returned to the living room. He felt the effects of the alcohol and drugs as they slowly diluted, but the effects of the intimacy with Greg had lingered, even intensified. Of course, it had been a brutal act that had, at times, frightened him. He had not been able to react as he would have liked to because of the haze caused by the ingested substances, but how could he be surprised after the way he had treated Greg? Above all, he was trying to keep in mind his firm belief that it was impossible for him to stay with Greg. But his body had betrayed him. He had not been able to hold back the long sighs or tender gestures when his lover, devastated by mingled anger and desire, was coming back to him again.

It was necessary to quickly find the strength to continue lying. He had to hide the horror and sorrow that crossed him at the sight of the wounds inflicted by the MI5 agents. He had to recover very quickly, to go away - to move as far away as possible from the man he loved - to move as far away as possible from the man who loved him. The man who to him, in spite of everything, to prove it.

Greg began summarily wiping away the results of their embrace that ran down his belly. He then ran a finger across his lips, along the two bloody and painful swellings caused by his bites, saying nothing. 

It was Mycroft who spoke first, "How did you find me? How did you know I would come here? 

"We had planned dinner together here tonight. That you have not forgotten, obviously." Greg smiled bitterly.

Mycroft was silent.

Greg continued to speak as he got up and walked to the bathroom, “When you arranged this dinner, you absolutely wanted us to come here, and you know what? I think we should do what we had planned. Eat and talk for a while. I'm starving and no offence, but you look like hell and with the pills and all that you drank, it would not hurt you either."

“It's true, but can I remind you that you have not really helped me get back on my feet?” Mycroft answered through the closed the door as the shower had not started yet, “It is also true that I may have used words that were a little too harsh and offensive, but you, you may have imagined a lot of things! I'm sorry. Also, I'm sorry that stupid agent took his role a little too seriously, but you were about to make a huge mistake, for no reason!"

Mycroft found it much easier for Greg to be behind a door. This way Greg could not see him as he fought against his own tears and clenched his teeth.

* * *

_  
12 hours before…_

  
Night had fallen. In the darkness of Lady Smallwood's office, a tense, restless silence had filled the room until Sherlock spoke again.

"Lady Smallwood... tell me one way or another - does David Eldridge have access to Mycroft's surveillance data?"

“Yes, those are documents for which he is accredited.”

“So, he may have realized the suicidal behavior of my brother in recent hours. He may also have found that my brother did not complete this ... project ... to its end. Does he have control over the orders given to the personnel in charge of this surveillance? "

John and Alicia looked at each other, their eyes widened with fear at the implication.

"No," replied Lady Smallwood, “not directly. But we cannot exclude...friends. The ones who owe him favors, or who those who want to get into his good graces... Dear, Lord..."

John grabbed his phone and dialed, but Greg did not pick up. The doctor almost screamed his voice message.

"Greg, we need to talk and know where you are! Your life and Mycroft's life depends on it! Orders may have been given for him to...disappear. Be careful!" He cut the call, tapped out a text message and then called again and again and again.

* * *

  
_11 hours before..._

  
Greg, when he came out of the bathroom, did not even know where to start. 

Mycroft, again sat on the sofa in silence, not helping. The policeman made a vague gesture towards the staircase leading to the other rooms.

"Here, I've made you a cup of tea. You need to drink. The bathroom is free, if you want. I'll see what we can prepare to eat." 

Mycroft disappeared behind the door without saying anything. Greg breathed a long sigh. He found some prepared dishes and slipped them into the microwave.

Someone knocked on the door and Greg was immediately on his guard. From the outside, he heard a voice.

"Delivery! Anyone home? I have an order - a cake."

“A cake? Must be one that Mycroft forgot to cancel - that one? Keep it.” Greg grumbled a vague response to the deliveryman, but did not open the door.

As he heard the delivery man moving away, he picked up his phone and saw that he had a new message.

_Call me back ASAP. We need to know where you are. You may be in danger. -J_

John and Sherlock were really the last people he wanted to see at that place he more or less considered as belonging only to him and Mycroft. In addition, he was determined to shed light on Mycroft’s intentions. He responded just the same.

_A little later, ok? -G_

Mycroft came out of the bathroom, as he pressed "send".

They sat down without a word, and had a few bites of dinner.

Mycroft turned to him and spoke in his most neutral tone possible. "Anthea will to come get me. She will take me home, where you will not seek to contact me again. I forbade her to communicate with you. She gave you false hope. I'm sorry for that as well.”

“Again, with the _sorry_.” Greg looked at him, “So, what's the truth, Mycroft? Am I some big joke to you had fun sleeping with, or are you just trying to get away from me now?”

“Greg, the truth is whatever will allow you to live after all this is over. You can believe what you want, but you must continue to live your life, to do your work - without listening to what Sherlock tells you about it, by the way - and to take care of your daughter. Know that if I lied to you – the where, when, how, does not matter. I’ve lied, I have done it for so long and now I have to pay the price for those lies. Only me. You can be reassured, and reassure Sherlock and John, that everything I did today was only out of a short moment of desperation…”

"Yeah, I get it! You are certainly one of the best in your field and you have spent your life manipulating people, but what nonsense are you trying to sell me now, Mycroft?!" Greg interrupted as anger and despair returned, “Are my feelings so unimportant to you, then? I never hid them from you! You could have at least... well, whatever, but it _does not matter_ ” he imitated Mycroft’s voice with those words and continued, “You will not tell me anything. You will not tell me that you lied to me today, will you? Still, you cannot help but hope, can you? Hope that what I feel for you will not disappear…"

Greg stopped, suddenly, broken. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he had to say, but his anger of the last days and his immense fear of having lost the man he loves to Mycroft’s stubborn determination to protect Greg, even against himself, the words choked within him.

Greg continued, in a last-ditch effort, "Come on, let’s not talk here. Let’s go up. We’ll lie down and talk, but really talk this time."

Neither man moved for a moment.

_I will not yell, we will talk._

“Come on,” Greg repeated and headed for the stairs. To his amazement, Mycroft followed him without resistance. 

Mycroft was even paler than yesterday. His step was still shaky, despite the hours of rest that had passed. He seemed at once lost and terribly stubborn.

"Lie down, you're still not good yet. I see it." Greg pressed firmly on his shoulder to make him lie on the bed. 

Again, Mycroft did not oppose him. In fact, he had no reaction at all.  He seemed disconnected, as if detached from the present moment, it felt off.   Greg laid down and turned to his side to face a very stiff Mycroft, who stared at an invisible point on the ceiling. 

"It seems you do not intend to help me..." Greg said after a moment.

"Gregory... I..."

The formal use of his first name felt like a brutal slap in the face to Greg. He physically flinched at the sound of it.

_Gregory... So, we're here now ..._

It was more than Greg could take. Despite what he had promised himself, he exploded:

“No! Look at me Mycroft, I will not let you leave me yet..."

"No, you're going to listen to me now." Mycroft interrupted, in a voice that brooked no argument. He seemed to have regained his usual cool manner and tone, but he continued to refuse to look Greg in the eyes, as if he did not have the courage to face the anguish he felt. "You do not understand... It is no longer possible for us... It's over.”

“That's all." he added in a determined voice as he continued to stare at the ceiling.

"Mycroft, for God’s sake, explain yourself.  I’m nothing to you anymore, right? Just a… shabby cop?” Greg’s voice trembled under the foul words Mycroft had hurled at him a few days before. He could not, however, repeat the other outrages that had been pronounced. "Did you decide like that, all on your own, that our story ended there?"

Only a stubborn silence answered him.

"Myc…” he said in a voice so weak that Mycroft could not help but turn half, "Look at me, please. The deceptions, the evasions – it’s not us, you know it. Talk to me, Myc, talk to me."

Mycroft finally turned his gaze from the ceiling, which he was not seeing anyway, and turned to face Greg. He gently pushed until Greg was the one lying on his back and Mycroft was the one on his side.

He could not help it, Mycroft stroked his Greg’s mouth gently.

"Your lips... I have loved them... Their sweetness will accompany me wherever I go. No, do not speak, my love.” Mycroft murmured.

 _My love_ \- those words, given in that circumstance, were like stabs in the heart to Greg.

“If you knew ... if you had any idea how much I love you...” Mycroft's gaze finally met Greg's and it was like an ocean of sadness that came to meet him. "It is because I love you that I will not take you into the shipwreck that will become my life. Never. Do you hear me? They will _never_ hurt you in my name.” he added in a voice that now seemed haunted. “Whatever happens, I will face it alone. Forfeiture, prison, the danger of something worse... This is my story. Only mine…” His voice failed him then, he cleared his throat and continued, "But you will live, will not you?  You will learn to be happy again. You will laugh in the sun again. You will live for me and you will be happy and strong and powerful.”

Mycroft paused and when he resumed, a few moments later, it was with a voice that was more distant, as if he were somewhere else. 

"How I would have loved you... I would have pampered your body, caressed your skin, devoured your mouth. How we would have laughed together, my love... "Mycroft's voice broke on that word, with effort he continued, "But, there is no time. Promise me… Promise me that you'll be happy...”

While Mycroft spoke, Greg remained silent. He felt the threat behind each and every word that penetrated deeper and deeper into him. And little by little, a light within him began to shine on the behavior of Mycroft during the past crazy week when everything had changed. Finally, he understood.

He leaned up and with infinite slowness, he drew the face of the man he loved to him and kissed his forehead. Then, he pulled away a little and against all odds, he laughed. He laughed very softly and it was Mycroft's turn to look at him without understanding.

"Myc, if you knew, if you could imagine what I..." and his laugh faded out.

"For once, you're the idiot," he concluded abruptly with a funny little smile.

* * *

  
_6 hours before..._

  
Back at Baker Street, Sherlock paced around like a caged lion. 

A hundred times he had went over the threat revealed by Alicia Smallwood in his mind. He had immediately grasped its extreme gravity. The Home Office was not known to be lenient with its own. Still, no matter how much the detective went back to the data he had, nothing gave him clues to the location of his brother. Never before had he so desperately respected his elder brother’s brilliancy. Mycroft had woven protective barriers around himself so dense that nothing and no one - not even Sherlock - seemed able to take them down. Mycroft Holmes had disappeared, voluntarily, and had taken refuge in a place known only to him... and, without a doubt, Gregory Lestrade.

John had prepared tea. Of course, Sherlock had rejected the cup offered, but the doctor sat in his chair and sipped the beverage, his eyes half closed. In the cab ride home, he had let his thoughts drift and had a kind of fleeting intuition that had escaped him. But now, in the aroma rising from the cup, he felt that the possibility of moving forward on that fleeting thought returning. In his first sip of tea was the revelation. While the delicate aroma of orange and vanilla invaded his mouth, a sudden image came to him. He opened his eyes and put the cup down.

"Sherlock, I know who's going to lead us to him," said John, with no trace of doubt in his voice.

* * *

  
_12 hours before..._

  
Sergeant Harris, who had been monitoring Mycroft Holmes at the Diogenes, was not playing games. Though David Eldrige, for whom he was working from time to time, had yet to pay him his small reward from last month, Harris had asked for yet another favor. He drank too much. He knew it. On top of that Harris was having money troubles. He should never have gotten himself into all those crazy bets and now he had no choice, it was time to repay. So, when Eldrige _asked_ , hah(!), Harris had not even thought about it. It was an opportunity to replenish his account and, somewhere, to avenge the humiliations of everyday life. 

He prepared everything very quickly. No way to take a car. Too visible. He grabbed his Nikon and a telephoto lens from the closet. The one he used to take the close-ups of his kid in the summer at the beach.  _Thank God_ , _it was cold_. He put on his hat and scarf so he would not be recognizable. As he rushed into the subway, he made sure he turned his face away from the cameras, he texted a message to Paul, his usual contact at the Daily Mail. This story and this photo were going to save him. He just had to be very careful. 

And to not forget either the cardboard box or its revolver.

* * *

  
_6 hours before..._

  
Of course, Anthea had answered right away. It was John who understood that only one person could take them to Mycroft. The sweet young brunette woman who was a part of the very private inner circle of Sherlock’s brother.

_47, Cooper Road, Dartford. – A_

When the doctor said the woman’s name, Sherlock had looked at him with such gratitude that John could not help but smile, "See, I'm not that much of an idiot... "

"John, my John, my conductor of light!" Sherlock muttered gratefully. It was a wonderful moment, but a short-lived one as Sherlock took control of the situation again and they rushed into the night to isolated suburb of London.

It was only a matter of minutes.

* * *

  
_4 hours before..._

  
"Greg, but what are you ...?" Mycroft started to ask, but Greg's cell phone vibrated yet again.

Out of weariness, he decided to take a look at the screen.

_Greg, answer. –J_

_Greg, it's urgent. –J_

_Is Mycroft with you? –J_

_Turn on your fucking phone. –J_

_Are you okay? Is Mycroft safe and sound? –J_

_Greg, for heaven's sake, answer!! –J_

_We know where you are, we’re on our way –J_

By the time Greg read the last message, the phone rang and this time he picked up.

"At last!" said John, almost stuttering. “Listen, you are in danger, it is possible that they will try to kill you! It is absolutely necessary that Sherlock explains this to you! Put the speaker on, Mycroft needs to hear it too! "

Greg placed the phone on speaker. He and Mycroft listened as Sherlock with a tense voice detailed his work and his conclusions and finished with a little irony.

"No doubt he counted on your suicide, Brother Mine, and as your lucky star has decided to incarnate itself these days in a certain too sentimental detective inspector, nothing of the sort happened. He may have moved on to other more deadly projects... Smallwood is trying to access her communications, and the orders given this afternoon.”

Mycroft gave a long sigh.

"Calm down, Sherlock, will you? You are not telling me anything. Eldridge still needs me.  And everything is calm here, there are only commuters who are starting to come home. It's not worth coming over here, I assure you...”

Sherlock, exasperated, took John's phone and snapped it shut.

"My dear brother... He and his so-called superiority. He can be so stupid sometimes!”

* * *

  
_3 hours before..._

  
On the way to Dartford, In the taxi, Sherlock kept looking at the screen of his cell phone, again desperately dark. Neither his brother's phone nor Greg's answered.

John had put a reassuring hand on Sherlock's shoulder. He knew that the detective had anticipated the worst, and he himself could not help but anxiously think about the maneuvers that were being made in the shadows. They had to get there before the enemy. Two lives would be at stake. As he was already thinking about the upcoming battle, he felt Sherlock lean closer to him.

"John, I..." Sherlock whispered, but then stopped.

"Yes, Sherlock ...?” the doctor prompted.

When Sherlock resumed it was with a voice mingled with incomprehension and distress.

“Is this what love does, John? Does it make you an idiot?”

And in that loaded phrase, there was a whole ocean of questions that could be guessed. John allowed himself a smile.

“No, Sherlock.” He took his friend's hand of and brought it to his lips.

“Love is what makes you happy.”

* * *

  
_4 hours before..._

  
When the call was interrupted between Sherlock and him, something niggled Greg’s memory.

"Mycroft... The delivery guy..." Greg said, recalling the man even as he spoke it in words.

"Greg, what delivery guy? Really now!” Mycroft huffed disbelievingly. “It is not enough for you, who have been a policeman for an eternity, to also add to the paranoia of my brother? Nobody needs to make such foolish efforts to kill me. Come on!"

"So, you really forgot to cancel the delivery earlier?” Greg began to question Mycroft while trying to remember all the details as they headed back downstairs “The delivery of dessert to go with tonight’s dinner you organized?"

"No, there was no delivery man.” Mycroft tensed. “It was Anthea who had to bring everything. She was going to come, yes... Just to take me home and replenished whatever we used here. That delivery may just be a mistake…”

“A coincidence? I don't think so!” Greg doubted, “And you do not believe it either!”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Anthea will arrive any minute now."

Mycroft sighed and rolled his eyes, but said nothing. 

Outside, the moonless night was very dark as they passed a window by the front door. On the outside ledge, a cardboard box on which was drawn the logo of a pastry shop, had been left. Mycroft opened the window and picked it up despite Greg's negative gesture even as he approached to examine the box. 

A sensation seized him as he got close to the box. "That smell on the cardboard... it’s like one of Sherlock's experiments! Ammonium nitrate and chlorine... it's a explosive, Mycroft!”

“Greg, please stop your ranting! That smell could have any origin. Look, there’s a cake inside.” Mycroft said calmly. “Besides, and in such a populated neighborhood as this, who would take the risk of killing innocent people just to eliminate me?”

“And what if someone wanted to rig a device to explode, but realized that you were not alone?” Greg would not back down. “Mycroft, do you really want to take the risk?”

“We will do some checks. The house has been used by security agents. We will analyze the top of the box, but we will not find anything! Who would take the trouble to kill me? I'm already doomed...” Mycroft said in a tone that seemed almost indifferent. Without giving Greg any time to respond, Mycroft continued, "Alicia Smallwood will send a lot of snoopers, at least to check the security of the neighborhood, I really do not want to see everyone, and you do not have to stay either. Anthea is already on her way to pick me up, we'll leave before they arrive.  No matter where the attack comes from, assuming there will be one, I'll make sure I'm safe at home, do not worry. I’m going to solve this and then I’ll wait."

Greg looked at him, without saying a word. Without a doubt, Mycroft was being more stubborn than ever.

_If you think I’m going to let you do as you please…_

* * *

  
_3 hours before..._

  
At Sherlock's request, the cab dropped them a few blocks from their destination. "I'm going past the front, you check the rear."

Sherlock was in his element. Nothing made him more alive than danger. He was flying like a demon in his Belstaff.  

"I'm right behind you.” John replied as he felt for the butt of Sig at the back of his belt.

“Be careful. They are not schoolyard kids." he added, but Sherlock had already flown. In a few steps, they were on Cooper Road when John unexpectedly saw his friend stop abruptly and come back to him.

"Look," said the detective, whispering in a very low voice and pointing to a man half hidden behind a van, "it seems that we are not alone here.”

With a sparkling grin that cheerfully showed how much he was itching for a fight, Sherlock headed towards the man.

"The game is on!"

And John happily followed suit.

* * *

_  
3 hours before..._

  
Harris had no idea what happened to him. 

One second, he was watching the house at 47 Cooper Road, the next he was in unbearable pain as his shoulder was twisted from behind while a deep, imperious voice whispered in his ear.

"Rubbish photographer. Professionals use Leica. Anyway, your haircut speaks against you:  you are military, but someone low ranking, otherwise you would not be here. Married for twelve years, that ring style was only manufactured in that year. Debts. Big debts. You need money. If not, why bother doing this? Two children .... no, no just one, your wife does not love you enough to have given you another. That's why you have the photo and the phone number of a companion sticking out of your back pocket. Your kid does not like to be photographed on vacation. Hence the telephoto lens to take a picture without him noticing. Henchman for Eldrige. How? Yes, of course, explosives. You stink nitrate! In addition, you’re the deep throat for that rag publication. It's the Daily Mail that will pay you. This is the worst of all. That's it, Sergeant? That's right?"

Harris did not wait for the end of the sentence. Sherlock had caught him by surprise, but his training allowed him to react almost immediately. He freed himself from the Sherlock’s hold, turned and gave him a blow to the groin that brought the detective down to the ground with a groan. A second blow came crashing down on Sherlock's chin and lips. There would have been a third if Harris had not seen a silhouette, still far away rushing towards him. He analyzed the situation at a glance. A fallen man on the ground who was already rising and another whose quick moves and bearing betrayed the former soldier. He knew he had no chance with them. In a second, he made his decision...

John arrived a moment later, but instead of pursuing the fugitive, he knelt quickly next to Sherlock who was struggling to catch his breath.

“Are you okay, Sherlock? Nothing serious? Let me have a look!"

Sherlock straightened up a little and grimaced as he rubbed his chin. He looked to the doctor with disarming naivety.

"But, John, he did not he tell me I was amazing!”

* * *

  
"There is no way you get out of here without me, Myc. We leave together or we do not leave. It's like that. Policeman, remember, does that tell you something?” Greg said in a tense smile that showed his anxiety as he took out his service weapon out of the holster he had not taken off.

* * *

  
On Cooper Road, in front of the house, everything seemed to happen all at once.

There was the sudden sound of a fight behind a van parked along the sidewalk as blows were exchanged between two men. The tallest of them fell to the ground while a third, emerged from behind and sprung like a devil, in a rush toward the one who had just collapsed. 

A single shot was heard. Harris grabbed his camera and slipped away, not picking up the rest.

At the same time, the door of the house opened. Two men emerged, one behind the other. Though the second was a head taller, the first protected the second - blocking with his own body.  Mycroft pushed Greg aside as he instantly recognized the silhouettes on the ground and hurried forward. 

A bullet whistled by. In a grunt of pain, Mycroft fell to his knees, while Greg, in vain, tried to hold him down.

Sherlock and John momentarily froze at the sound of the shot, then both men looked up simultaneously.

It was John who first saw Mycroft slumped in front of the house. He cursed quietly, got up and rushed to him, Sherlock in his wake. Mycroft’s eyes were closed as the doctor knelt by his side, Greg holding his head carefully.

No other shot had followed. 

The street was as silent as normal.

* * *

  
_3 hours later_

  
"Stop thinking and come hug me, I'm cold.”  Sherlock whispered.

"Let me check on your brother. I’ll be right back," John said in a low voice.

Mycroft slept in John’s old room. Once all three had returned to Baker Street, all John had to do was clean and bandage the wound. The bullet had just brushed his arm, nothing serious.  

The doctor leaned over Mycroft carefully to not wake him as he gently checked his vitals.

He needn’t had bothered being careful, Mycroft was out cold in much needed sleep. After the past few days both Holmes brothers desperately needed sleep, it was obvious.

When he returned to his bedroom John was not surprised at all to find Sherlock equally pulled into a deep slumber. He laid down and wrapped his warmth around the detective anyway and fell into his own sleep.

* * *

  
At the house on Cooper Street Greg straddled his motorcycle. 

Despite everything that happened, Greg had rejected the temptation to accompany Mycroft to Baker Street.

John had told him it was okay, that Mycroft was in no danger. It was a minor wound and in three days he would be fine. 

He had kissed Mycroft very softly, while he still held Mycroft’s head in his lap. Though Mycroft had yet to open his eyes, Greg leaned close and whispered something that only the Iceman had the right to hear before he left him to John’s care.

Greg zipped his leather jacket decisively. He revved the Harley’s engine loudly in the quiet night and headed for London, without single glance back.

_Soon you will know, my love, just how far I will go for you._


End file.
